The Fury of the Hawk
by BetaCobra
Summary: "A smirk curled at the corner of Hawk's mouth. Nobody was ever going to hurt him again." A character study on the transformation of Eli Moskowitz, the meek bullied teenager with a facial disfigurement, into Hawk, the karate student who most embraced Cobra Kai's mantra of "No Mercy."
1. Lip

_So I'm not supposed to mention his lip at all?_

"Hey, shitlip! Didn't you hear me?"

Eli gripped the straps of his backpack tighter, hunching his shoulders higher, as if with enough force he could simply slip into his oversized sweater like it was the protective shell of a turtle. If only he was like one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, he thought briefly; if he were like Raphael, he could easily whip around and deliver a solid kick to the face of one of these assholes.

Instead, he tensed up as he found himself shoved against the lockers. He turned back around and instinctively curled his arms up in a protective stance, eyes darting wildly to see if maybe just one guy in the locker room might come to his aid. But it was useless. Coach McGee had already left to get ready for the next gym period, and any other stragglers were turning their heads and looking away, not wanting to get involved and bring the attention of Kyler and his crew upon themselves; or maybe Eli simply wasn't worth protecting.

Brucks stepped up to be the one manhandling him this time. He wrenched Eli's arms away from his skinny frame like he offered no resistance at all, reminding Eli just how weak and pathetic his futile attempts at guarding himself actually were. Brucks then slammed his open palm against the locker by his victim's head, making him flinch for good measure, affirming to everyone that _he_ was the one in control, _he_ was the one with the power, and _he_ could hurt Eli anytime he wanted.

Kyler and the other boys behind Brucks laughed when he cracked an ugly grin and grabbed Eli by his chin. "Dude," chuckled the bigger teenager, "didn't your rabbi know that when he circumcised you he was supposed to cut your dick, not your face!" Their uproarious, mocking chortles rang in Eli's ears, and he could feel all of their contemptuous eyes glaring at the scar on his upper lip. He tried shrinking away again, but Brucks maintained his hold firmly, forcing Eli to keep looking at their voyeuristic gazes.

"I bet the only girl who's kissed this ugly mug is his mom!" Brucks pressed further, squeezing his hold on Eli's face until it forced his lips to purse.

Kyler laughed the hardest at that. "What chick would want a guy who gives blowjobs to weed wackers?" Why did Kyler and his gang have to be like this, Eli hopelessly wondered? Kyler could have any girl in school he wanted, he was the perfect catch: athletic, confident, with an attractive face that had no hideous blemish disfiguring it to boot. Why did he have to torture Eli with the reminder that he had none of these qualities? Why did he have to keep bringing it to Eli's attention that he was a loser, a freak, a weirdo who would never get a girlfriend because of that ugly scar on his lip?

"Holy shit, is he gonna cry?" guffawed Brucks, bringing Eli back to the present situation and with it the realization that his eyes had against his better inclination grown red and puffy, and were struggling not to let loose the wet tears hiding behind his rapidly blinking lids. Why was he so weak? This was only going to make it worse.

The only thing that saved him from further ridicule was the sudden ringing of the bell over the intercom. Kyler scooped up his backpack from the floor and called out to his friend, "Yo, drop the nerd for now, let's get to Bio. You know what the coach said would happen if you're tardy to another class." Listening to his pack leader, Brucks gave a last patronizing pat to Eli's cheek before backing off, and the group left the locker room with one final laugh at his expense; just like that, it was over as quickly as it had begun.

Allowing himself a loud sniff, Eli wiped his nose on the back of his arm. A blur from the corner of his vision startled him, and he practically tripped over his shoes in preparation to dart towards the showers in case Brucks had decided it was worth possibly being suspended from a wrestling match to pick on him some more. But instead of Bruck's bulk, this newcomer shuffling up to his side was all bony elbows and knees. Not an enemy, but a friend.

Demetri looked down at his companion with resolved pity and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Well, there were about a dozen ways that could've gone much worse," he sighed in his usual defeatist tone. "But at least you listened to my advice and didn't try talking them out of it this time. I told you, that only incites them more." Eli had almost wanted to laugh at how Demetri, of all people, had given him advice about not mouthing off to someone. "If you can't avoid them, better just to let them project their misplaced hostility and get it over with."

Sniffing hard again, Eli could only meekly reply, "Y-Yeah…."

Seeing how shaken his friend had become by the encounter, how he was clearly trying and beginning to fail to hold his tears back, Demetri made an attempt at reassuring him. "Don't let those troglodytes get to you. C'mon, that knuckle-dragger didn't even know the difference between a rabbi and a mohel, are you really going to take what he says to heart like he's spouting some kind of real wisdom?"

A spark of fury lit up inside Eli, so fast it caught him by surprise. Demetri had been there the whole time, heard the whole thing go down, and hadn't lifted a finger to help him. He didn't intervene, didn't run to get help, nothing. But just as quickly as that spark ignited, Eli dampened it, snuffing it back out with the understanding that there was nothing Demetri could have done. If he had spoken up, Kyler and his crew would have simply included him as an acceptable target of their bullying, just as they had in the past. And teachers were useless, even if Demetri had grabbed one it wouldn't have made any difference.

_Nothing_ made a difference, _nothing_ would make them stop hurting him.

The second bell rang, and more students began scuttling into the locker room to get ready for the next gym class. "Late for Physics," said Demetri cynically with a shake of his head. "Well, I gotta get going, otherwise I'm gonna ruin my academic career." He gave Eli a sad smile and asked before leaving, "Wanna meet after school and head over to the mall? I'm feeling up for some comic books and Chinese food."

Eli tried to return the smile, but only managed a half, well, _something_ instead; the only expression he could wear on his face at the moment was complete wretchedness. "Y-Yeah," he stuttered softly again. "Sounds good…." It did truly sound good, and Eli knew he would feel better once he got some orange chicken into him and could pick up the latest issue of _Suicide Squad_. But that knowledge did nothing to help him recover at the moment, and as soon as Demetri left, Eli became alert to the looks the other guys in the locker room were giving him. And he couldn't take being gawked at anymore.

Screw Biology class, he thought to himself as he hid his upper lip behind his hand and raced passed the other boys as quickly as his feet would scuffle towards the nearest bathroom stall. As soon as he sat on the toilet, the tears broke from their weak dam and spilled down his face unhindered. His chin trembled, and Eli tried his hardest to at least control how loudly his sobs escaped from him.

_If you want to be something other than a nerd with a scar on his lip, then you gotta flip the script_

The hour couldn't pass fast enough. Eli felt he must have glanced towards the clock a hundred times, waiting. Each minute seemed like forever, and he had run out of patience. His foot wouldn't stop twitching. He looked at the clock on his bed stand yet again. Ten more minutes. No doubt it would be the longest ten minutes of his entire life. Worse even than those ten minutes of complete silence when he'd screwed up reading from the Torah during his Bar Mitzvah.

With a sigh, he picked up the remote and exited out of the episode of _Star Trek_ he had only half-heartedly been watching on Netflix and tried to find another episode that might hold his attention better. No good. His mind just wasn't into it right now. He was so absorbed in the mission at hand that even _DS9_ couldn't hold his interest.

Letting out a grunt of frustration, he picked up his phone and opened the Instagram app. Scrolling down, he passed by the video Aisha posted of some new move she and Miguel had practiced at the dojo, and he didn't look at the most recent photo that Demetri took of his recently-acquired DVD collection of _Doctor Who_ in HD. Eli didn't have time for any of that right now. He couldn't even spare a thought about how sad it was that it took only a few seconds to get through all the new content on his feed, since he was following so few people.

He wasn't interested in any of that. He just needed a reminder why he was doing what he was doing. So he kept scrolling until he found what he was looking for.

The picture had been completely ordinary and unassuming. Just a photo of Eli smiling at the beach, taken simply because it was a nice memory he wanted to share. One would think he had committed some unspeakable crime from the way the other kids had piled on him. All he'd done was smile….

_Nice smile, fugly_

That had been the first comment.

_lol did u make out with a razor blade or wut_

That was the next one. And they kept going.

_What's on your lip, totally gross barf DX_

_kill yourself uggo_

_Whoa you got herpes?_

_I'll pay $10 to the first chick who posts a pic kissing that lmao_

_Ain't nobody kissing that mouth_

_Cover that up next time bruh_

_sorry you must be this hot to be at the beach, loser_

_freak_

Lip.

Eli took a deep, calming breath as an even deeper frown settled over his features. He scrolled through even more comments. They weren't confined to that one picture, but on others he had posted as well, some that weren't even selfies. They just kept going. They had been so mean, and they just wouldn't stop. He'd almost deleted his Instagram account multiple times over it. Now he was glad he hadn't. He'd needed this last reminder. Sensei Lawrence had been right….

A knock on his door almost made him jump. "What?!" he asked, a little too sharply. God his nerves were shot to pieces.

"Eli?" came his mother's voice from behind the door. He could hear it so clearly in her tone, that concern, that desire on her part to have the sole power to make everything better for him. She couldn't though. Sometimes she even made things worse. She never meant to, but she did, like the time she called the school and had them make an announcement on his behalf to stop the bullying. "Eli, I just wanted to be sure you didn't want any dinner. I'm about to put away the leftovers."

"I told you, I'm not hungry!" he snapped in return. He knew that hostility was only going to ring his parents' alarm bells even louder. Now they were only going to try harder to pry into what he was doing. He'd caught their looks of worry when he'd stormed into the house, brushing past them in the kitchen, clutching the Wal-Mart bag in his hand like it was a life-preserver, and telling them he didn't want the hot plate of brisket and potatoes they'd laid out for him at the table. He was going to his room, he'd said, and he wanted to be left alone.

In the past, that had always signified that he was about to have a breakdown over getting bullied, that he was going to bury his face in his pillow and cry. That's probably what his mother thought he was doing now. Crying like the complete wuss he'd been his whole life. Crying over how people who didn't even know him had decided to hurt him.

Not this time.

Eli looked down at his phone again, gripping the sides of it tight with his stained fingers. His eyes swept over the fifty-three hateful comments under the beach picture again, steeling his resolve. Sensei Lawrence's insults at the dojo had been just as callous as those left by the other students from his school, but he had been right about one thing: nobody in the real world was ever going to stop picking on him just because he begged them to, nobody was ever going to stop commenting on his lip until he gave them something else to talk about.

The alarm he'd set on his phone vibrated, alerting him that he had successfully made it through the hour. Eli couldn't leap off his bed and rush to his bathroom fast enough. He leaned over the tub and wrenched on the faucet, and as soon as the shower head started raining down cold water, he dunked his head under it. Hands flew up to rinse as quickly as he was capable. His eyes watched the clear water at the bottom of the tub turn azure, and he briefly wondered if it would stain, his mother would be mad about that if it did.

No matter. That wasn't what was important right now.

Once he was satisfied at the sight of the water clearing up again, he turned off the shower and pried the towel off the nearby rack. He dried his hair until it was just a little damp. As he tossed the towel aside, Eli reached his hands out and grabbed the bottle of freeze spray and his comb, almost knocking off the container of Manic Panic from the sink in the process.

He'd watched the videos at least a dozen times that day. He knew what to do. Dropping his head down, his fingers worked, combing out the middle of his hair on his head. The spray hissed out of the bottle. He used so much in his frenzy that he started to cough. Why was he so insistent at getting this done as soon as humanly possible, he couldn't be sure. Maybe he was still afraid that his resolve would melt, that he was too weak to go through with this.

He needn't have feared that, however. Remembering Sensei Lawrence's words, rereading those comments, that warmed the fury igniting in his chest, guiding his movements until he set the comb and spray back on the sink.

Eli raised his head and his eyes penetrated the reflection staring back at him in the mirror. This familiar stranger. Where just a few seconds prior his movements had been like lightning, now his hand raised as slow as an iceberg to reach up and lightly touch the stiff hair raised high on his head, as if to make sure that it was actually his, whether this reflection was really him. Sure enough, it was he, the one sporting that electric blue fanning mohawk. That was him. The new him. The real him. When people saw him coming, they would see that hair before they ever noticed the scar on his upper lip.

They would never see meek little Lip.

A smirk curled at the corner of Hawk's mouth.

Nobody was ever going to hurt him again.


	2. Hood

_You hear that, Eli? A little karate training and you're gonna kick some major ass._

"Get more aggressive, Hawk!"

From his position on his back, on the floor, Miguel Diaz looming threateningly over him with a pad, Hawk cast his eyes up at the black-gi-clad teacher of the Cobra Kai dojo, the person responsible for him being on his back in the first place. Johnny Lawrence had them practicing ground work that day, and Miguel had knocked Hawk on his ass no fewer than ten times so that he might learn the right form to counter-attack; Eli could already feel how sore his tailbone was going to be that night.

Still, any soreness paled in comparison to the euphoria he felt at being called "Hawk." He wanted everyone, not just Sensei Lawrence, to call him that. He _loved_ his new nickname. No, it wasn't just a nickname, it was a whole new identity. Hawk was everything Eli wasn't, everything he couldn't be. Whereas Eli was a pathetic crybaby loser with an ugly lip, Hawk was someone without doubt, someone who could stand up for himself, someone who would never let anyone hurt him. Hawk was the anti-Eli. Or, as Eli the Nerd might've called him, his Mirror-verse self.

"We're talking about self-preservation," Sensei Lawrence reiterated, circling to the front of his students. "If your enemy gets you on the ground in a real fight, do you think they're going to stop the brawl and help you back up, give you a nice pat on the back? Not unless they're a little bitch, they won't. When you're on your back, you're at your most vulnerable."

Hands slapping the mat as he dropped to the ground to join Hawk, Sensei Lawrence showed him the fighting position again. Body curled up, one foot on the ground, one knee coiled, and both hands up to protect the face. "Tap into that primal fear, and strike!" With a yell, Sensei Lawrence struck out his raised foot, stopping just short of actually hitting Miguel on his leg, who had in Sensei's demonstration let the pad lean uselessly at his side. Looking at Hawk, Johnny explained, "If you hit him in the shins, you might stun him. But if you hit him in the kneecap…." He paused a moment to send another false-kick to Miguel, his foot ending a hair's width away from his student's knee. "….Then he'll be the one crying on the ground. Do whatever it takes to get your opponent to stop attacking you."

Hawk gave a curt nod of his head, to signal that he understood. "Yes, Sensei."

Sensei Lawrence stood up, and after a beat he added, "Obviously that last part's only for life-threatening situations. But even for tournament fighting, you need to put some real aggression into it. You can't be hitting like a girl…." Hawk, Miguel, and Sensei Lawrence all three caught the harsh stare coming from Aisha Robinson at that, so Johnny corrected himself. "I mean, don't be a pussy when it comes to putting force behind your moves. Imagine instead of Diaz it's some asshole who's been giving you shit at school. You'd have to have gotten a lot of that right? Get your leg coiled, and as soon as he's coming to give you another beatdown, strike hard!"

That did the trick. Hawk had been holding back in fear of hurting Miguel, even with the pad, but once he imagined his friend was instead someone like Kyler, Brucks, Yasmine, or any one of the many other students who had tormented him, his fury spilled forth. His leg shot out and connected with the pad, hitting with enough force to send Miguel stumbling back away from him, giving Hawk enough time to stand back up safely and put some distance between them before immediately resuming a fighting stance.

"Good!" praised Sensei Lawrence. "You two keep practicing. Hawk, keep up that aggression. Diaz, put him through the ringer. Remember you two, no mercy."

"Yes, Sensei," responded Miguel and Hawk.

It was so refreshing to Hawk for his anger and bitterness to finally be vindicated by someone. Growing up, Eli was taught that if anyone asked him for his forgiveness for wronging him, he should grant it if they were genuinely sincere. Problem was, nobody ever apologized for doing him harm. He wasn't important enough to apologize to, apparently, they thought he was too pathetic even for that. So he never got the privilege of closure.

Now, though. Now he could make his own closure.

"Sorry, but I'm gonna have to _really_ kick your ass now," said Miguel, but his threat was greatly immunized by his inability to hide the grin on his face as he flashed his metal braces. After all, this wasn't a real street brawl, or even a tournament battle, it was just sparring between friends.

Hawk smirked in return, raising his arms and bringing his elbows in to defend himself. "Bring it!"

He and Miguel went at it for the rest of the class. Miguel was still the better fighter; it made sense, after all, Miguel had been training with Sensei Lawrence for a couple months before any other students joined. But that hot spark inside of Hawk fueled him with enough ferocity to get plenty of his own moves in, sometimes sending Miguel onto his own back with a fierce sweep of the leg. By the time they were finished, both boys were sore and thoroughly wiped. But as Hawk wiped the sweat from his face with his towel, his eyes lit up as they fell on the logo prominently displayed across from the mirrors in the dojo.

The words on the wall, black lettering on white plaster, captivated Hawk. Sometimes he even found himself repeating the mantra in his head outside of the dojo, like during a dull moment in class, compartmentalizing the code so it might become part of his very identity: Strike First, Strike Hard, No Mercy.

He was thrown from his thoughts when Aisha suddenly asked, "Hey Hawk, you up for grabbing a slice of pizza?" She and Miguel stood there with their gym bags, looking tired but with warm smiles still plastered on their sweaty faces. Here was a whole group of friends, inviting him to go out to lunch; Aisha, who was so smart and who had had the courage to recover from being virally humiliated on Instagram on account of her weight by embracing her natural cobra-self; and Miguel, who was the coolest guy Hawk knew, the person he most looked up to for how he'd handled Kyler and his crew.

He smirked back at them, and tried to think of a cool response. Eli would've practically tripped over his own tongue in his desperation to be included. Hawk had to be the opposite of that. "Sure, if there's also some mozz involved."

Eli had never really been a member of anything. He wasn't exactly the type of person who endeared himself to groups. For the longest time, Demetri was pretty much the only person his age who wanted to be around him, until that day when Miguel had asked to sit at their lunch table. And it was through Miguel that Eli now was part of Cobra Kai, that he was part of something bigger, surrounded by other people who enjoyed seeing him walk in through the doors and who invited him out for pizza after a rough day at the dojo.

Actually belonging to a group? Boy did that come with a big emotional rush. It felt good. Just being in the dojo, surrounded by the other students, getting praise from his Sensei, vitalized Hawk, filled him with an addictive energy. He loved every second of it.

And it was all thanks to Cobra Kai and his mohawk.

_Doesn't matter if you're a loser or a nerd or a freak. All that matters is that you become badass._

It was truly amazing what one little difference could make in someone's life, how it could completely flip the script and turn things on its side. Had it really been so easy a fix all of this time? All Eli had had to do was give himself a badass hair cut, and all of a sudden he would start gaining some respect? It seemed to be the only conclusion to make.

From the first morning he walked outside supporting his new 'do, Hawk could feel the difference immediately. Whereas before he would sense all of the uneasy stares of people around him as they tried to politely, or not so politely, figure out what was going on with his face, now they looked at him with new expressions: awe, esteem, maybe even a little jealousy. They must've wished they had his confidence to rock that hair.

Confidence was the key. It wasn't _just_ the hairstyle, Hawk had to carry it like he knew he looked awesome. People would be attracted to almost anyone if that person owned it with 100% conviction. Hawk had to own his new script completely, to go hard or go home. There was no room for hesitation or fear. He had to completely shed his old flaky skin as Eli if he was going to live in the new shiny skin as Hawk and enjoy the reaping of what he'd sowed.

He threw himself completely into Cobra Kai. It was a miracle his muscles didn't completely atrophy from how little he gave them a break. Even when he was done at the dojo, when he got home he would usually put anything else on hold, even homework, in order to practice and perfect what he'd learned that day. He had to get all the movements down, to get the muscle memory, to get as good as Miguel. Pushups, crunches, burpees, everything he'd ever hated about gym class he now embraced fully as the tools he needed to help mold his new self-image.

At first his parents had been apprehensive about this total 180 in looks and attitude from their son, but when they could see for themselves how it was giving him much-needed self-assurance, the assertiveness to carry his head high every morning when he walked out the door to school, rather than shrinking into his over-sized sweaters in the hopes that he might turn invisible, they decided to support him. Hawk attended every class their checkbooks could pay for.

And he didn't just listen to all the advice Sensei Lawrence gave about karate. Their Sensei was full of great tips and wisdom when it came to all sorts of things about life outside of fighting, too, and Hawk absorbed every bit of it like a sponge. Everything from music, to girls, to how to carry himself like an alpha male, Hawk took it all in.

Miguel had talked at length about the 80s rabbit hole he'd gone down when Sensei Lawrence told him to check out some real music. Hawk did him one better. For a solid fortnight, he went on a binge of 80s action flicks. Previously he'd only been aware of some of these titles through pop-culture osmosis, and as a Californian he was at least familiar with the fact that former Governor Schwarzenegger had been an action movie star, but he'd never actually sat down and watched all of those movies before. However, after finishing with his practice and homework, those nights he plopped himself on his bed in front of his laptop and scooped up any major schlocky film from that decade he could find that he thought Sensei Lawrence would recommend.

_Commando, Rambo: First Blood, The Terminator, Robocop, Die Hard, Mad Max 2, Cobra_. These movies were positively jacked up on testosterone, and they had plenty of the types of models Hawk was looking for. All of those chiseled, grizzly men, with their prominent scars and tattoos, carrying around big guns and bigger attitudes. They always knew what to say, what the right thing was to do, and they always got the girl in the end. This was a time when men could be real men, when they could take the world's injustices in their own hands and deal out the appropriate punishment.

And to think, Hawk had spent so much of his time watching things like _Doctor Who_ and _Star Trek_ when he should've been watching this. How much grief would that had spared him had Schwarzenegger and Stallone been more of an influence on his adolescence instead of the Ninth Doctor and Captain Sisko?

That realization hit him hard one particular night. Just as the latest movie reached its climatic end, Hawk was brought down from the macho high it gave him when a quick sweep of his eyes around his room assaulted him with a reminder of those previous interests. It was like a splash of cold water to look at them now: figurines depicting characters from _Voltron, Dragon Ball Z, TMNT_, and other cartoons; a bookshelf full of comic books, DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Indie, he didn't discriminate; DVD collections encompassing whole seasons of sci-fi television; various other items, such as chess pieces, _Pokemon_ cards, videos games; and posters on his walls showcasing all of his nerdy hobbies, from the one he got at Computer Camp, to art pieces he'd pick up at geek cons, to the _Harry Potter_ poster depicting the Hufflepuff crest.

All things he'd collected over his life to soothe something he was missing. His doctor had told his parents it might've been a symptom of Aspergers, and it was just as easily a way to help him cope with his depression. Eli might not have had many friends, but he had belongings, he had possessions, and just for a while, as he used them, they could help alleviate some of the pain of loneliness. It wasn't a cure for his ills, but it was something.

Every time he looked at all these old things that had made Eli happy, Hawk felt like he was ripping bandaids off of old festering wounds. Because that was what all of this stuff was, just bandaids. It made his gut clench, tighten up, and twist into a pretzel. Had any of this junk - these comics, these posters, these figurines, these shows, all of this _nerd shit_ \- had any of it really ever made him happy?

When his eyes fell upon the memorabilia now, all Hawk could see was the truth that this was part of the reason he had been such a friendless dork. This kind of shit was for little kids, no wonder nobody wanted to be around such a juvenile loser. All the cool kids in school always talked about hanging out, drinking, hooking up with hot babes, actual adult activities. He was almost sixteen, practically a man, it was time to grow up.

Hawk's face felt like it was on fire, and his hands had started to tremble. Pressing his mouth into a thin line, he gripped his fists tight for a moment to stop the trembling before reaching up at his wall and yanking down the Hufflepuff poster, ripping its edges in the process. With it already ruined, he went ahead and continued with the destruction, tearing into the poster until the pieces of paper fell like snow to the floor

All of this shit had to go.

He wasted no time grabbing a garbage bag and a few boxes, and went to work. He put no care into it as he tossed his toys into a box. Comics got bent in their plastic sleeves when he threw them all in another. He couldn't even properly shut the box that he'd rammed his DVD collections into. All were shoved unceremoniously under his bed, into the darkness. He knelt on the ground where the poster pieces had fallen; he scooped them up and stuffed them into the garbage bag. Most of the other posters met similar ends.

And just as he packed away his nerdy belongings, he also stored away the traumatic memories he now associated with them, with the intention of avoiding those memories by any means necessary.

Hawk sniffed loudly when he sat back down on the edge of his bed once he'd completed the task. His room was so empty now. Barren walls, empty bookshelves. Only a few possessions survived the culling, things Hawk could justify still existing in his new life. Despite the hot fury surging through his veins that had propelled him to tuck away his geek interests in the first place, Eli all of a sudden felt cold. What did he have to replace these things that had at one time meant everything to him, that had shaped his whole identity?

Looking at the end of the bed, where he had paused the 80s action movie, Hawk looked at the man on the screen. Cool. Edgy. So sure of himself. A big gun in one arm, a woman in another. Rocking that ride-or-die attitude with a badass tattoo across his chest for good measure.

That's when the inspiration hit him. And Hawk wasn't so cold anymore.

The next day after school, Hawk waited. The last time he'd locked himself in a bathroom stall in the boys' locker room, Eli had bawled his eyes out. Now, however, Hawk wasn't the prey. He was the predator, waiting on his prey. And there he was, getting dressed for wrestling practice with the rest of his jock friends. But Hawk knew he'd be the last one to leave. Brucks couldn't help but be a straggler, and as soon as Kyler left to go back into the gym, they were all alone.

Blood pounded in Eli's ears, and he suddenly found himself struggling to catch his breath. He remembered what had happened the last time Brucks cornered him in the locker room, recalled every terrible thing he'd said to him, how he'd grabbed his face in his hand and forced him to watch the crew laugh at him. He didn't want to go through that again. If he left now, maybe Brucks wouldn't see him….

Hawk steeled himself and took a deep, calming breath. Enough of that pussy shit. He wasn't a turtle trying to hide in his shell anymore. He was a cobra, and the first thing a cobra did to signal its aggression was to raise its hood.

So, making sure that his mohawk was perfectly in place, Hawk opened the door and slithered out of the bathroom stall, stealthily sneaking up on Brucks with the soft steps on the balls of his sneakers. The other teen never saw him coming. Beginner's mistake, thought Hawk. Obviously nobody had taught Brucks vigilance. The big guy didn't register him at all until Hawk slammed the locker door next to him with his open palm, frightening Brucks the same way he'd frightened him earlier.

"What the hell, man?" exclaimed Brucks, bringing a hand up to his heart to catch his breath from the moment's fright. Once he noticed whom it was that had caught him by surprise, however, he scowled. "What do _you_ want?" Such a simple question. No name-calling, no posturing, no more treating Hawk like he was some small animal that Brucks could play with before going in for the kill.

A lot of this change was no doubt due to the humble pie Brucks had been forced to eat when Miguel had embarrassed him and Kyler and their whole crew in the lunch room that day in what had to be the greatest case of bullies getting justice in the history of their high school. A pang of envy stung Hawk. He wished _he_ could've been the ones to make those guys pay.

That was okay, though. He was here on a mission. He needed Brucks for a reason other than payback. "I know you and your goons were able to get alcohol in the past," said Hawk with a cool veneer, letting Brucks know that not only did he not scare him anymore, but he also had information that could get him in trouble. "That means you got a fake ID right?"

Brucks's face contorted in irritated confusion, and he responded, "What are you talking about? Get the fuck outta here." He turned away to finish tying his cleats, like the other boy was just some minor nuisance he could brush off. Like Eli wasn't worth his attention.

But Hawk wasn't going to be ignored. Boldly, he reached out and pushed Brucks's shoulder, forcing the two of them to look at each other. "Hey, I don't give a shit about your underage drinking. I need your contact so I can get an ID, too."

Still not intimidated, Brucks brushed Hawk's hand off his shoulder with a messy swipe. "Even if I did know where to get one, why would I tell you?" he asked with an ugly chuckle.

Hawk's brow furrowed deep on his face, and he scowled. How dare Brucks laugh at him? How dare he not take him seriously? How dare he still treat him like a pushover? He struck his palm out and hit the locker again before he even realized he had done so, startling Brucks, who seemed genuinely caught off guard by his anger. "Just give me a name."

"Or what?" countered Brucks, but his tone betrayed uncertainty. Hawk caught scent of the fall in confidence. For the first time, Brucks was registering him as a threat, even as he tried to brush him off again. "You and your little karate gang gonna come at me?" He never would've taunted Miguel like that. Hawk was done playing games. It was time they started taking him just as seriously.

He repeated the Cobra Kai mantra in his head over and over.

_Strike first_. Hurt Brucks before he could hurt him again.

The smirk returned to harden Hawk's look, producing an almost uncanny effect. "Don't worry, lard-o," he said with a smug air. _Strike hard_. Go for what would undoubtedly be a sore spot for Brucks: his weight. "Miguel already beat your fatass, and I'm not interested in fighting losers." That hit struck as hard as if Hawk had actually delivered a spinning heel kick to Bruck's face. He watched as his former tormentor's expression morphed, how the prior confidence melted right off completely like butter, leaving self-conscious hurt in its place so fast that Brucks couldn't even hide it.

Good, thought Hawk. How does it feel to get teased for a change?

Part of him knew that it was not right to pick on Brucks for his weight. After all, Eli saw exactly how that sort of easy targeting had affected Aisha. Kids who were fat at school almost always got mercilessly picked on for it. But Hawk was sure this situation was different. This was an enemy, not a friend. And it was Brucks's rich-bitch familiar Yasmine who had humiliated Aisha in the first place. Brucks should be grateful he was making fun of his pudginess in private, not blasting it to everyone at school. Even though it would be just desserts if he did.

And there were no cheap shots when it came to enemies. You did whatever you had to do to knock them down, hit any weak point you could get your hands on.

Brucks had hurt him. He deserved to be hurt in return.

Hawk had him exactly where he wanted him. He could see the weakness in Brucks's face, the way the power had shifted between them. His bully no longer had any control over him. Hawk was the one with the taste of power now, and now that he had it, he wasn't going to let that go. "That's why I'm giving you a chance to just give me a contact and walk away. Heh, I mean, unless you actually enjoyed being Internet Famous. I'm sure lots of people at school would love to see you getting your wide-load handed to you again on YouTube."

The fight left Brucks after that. He turned his head and shrugged his shoulders in defeat. "Whatever, man, I'll get you his name." And Brucks did. In two minutes, Hawk had a name and place to meet a man who could get him a fake ID. Prize won, mission accomplished. More importantly, Hawk had some closure with Brucks, closure he'd made for himself. Now when he saw him, he'd no longer remember him as the bully who'd tortured him in the locker rooms. He was just a pathetic loser.

Hawk swelled with pride.

Nobody was ever going to hurt him again.

Tucking the piece of paper with the contact information into his flannel pocket, Hawk looked once over his shoulder at Brucks before leaving. His lips curled into a smirk again. _No mercy_. "See you tomorrow in Bio, fatass."


	3. Ink

_Wait, are your parents okay with that?_

_Oh, they have no idea. Definitely going to have to wear a T-shirt until college. Probably longer. Please don't tell them._

He was still at the stage where he enjoyed admiring his tattoo in front of the mirror. How could he help himself, the final product had undoubtedly turned out to be badass, both Miguel and Aisha had agreed on that. It was just what he'd needed to help cement his self-image. The flying raptor on his back, wings extended, prepared to fiercely attack anyone that crossed it. He especially enjoyed rolling his shoulder-blades to get the hawk to fly. Everything about the tattoo was just perfect, especially since he had asked Rico to embellish it by giving the hawk its own electric blue mohawk; it really was that extra little touch that made all the difference.

Keeping the tattoo hidden from his parents was going to require constant vigilance. If they ever found out, they would definitely flip; they could probably understand if he had acted out a little in the name of teenage rebellion, but there was no way they wouldn't ground him for life if they knew he'd gotten a tattoo behind their backs, illegally at that.

Eli didn't necessarily like the thought of keeping such a big secret from his parents. His mom and dad had always tried to be those types who assured their kid he could come to them for anything, but Hawk knew that contract only covered certain circumstances. This was on a whole other level. So even though the weight of having to constantly carry a big lie around them for at least the next six years might eventually crush him, it couldn't be helped.

A ring-tone went off, and Hawk grabbed his phone off his bed to answer the Facetime call. "'Sup?" he said when Demetri's face filled the screen. Before his friend could even get a single word out, Hawk cut him off and immediately took control of the call. "Yo, check this out." He propped his phone against a box on his dresser, then stepped back and turned around, flashing his new ink for Demetri to see.

On the other end of the screen, Demetri took a good long look at the flying red-tailed hawk, with its prominent blue mohawk, and gave a satirical nod. "Hmm, impressive," he judged, rubbing a thumb down his chin, as if in contemplation. "You're definitely one step closer to looking the full part of a teenage delinquent. I'm almost tempted to hand over my lunch money to you right now."

Pivoting back around, Hawk curled his lip back in annoyance. He had hoped Demetri would reaffirm to him just how amazing his new tattoo looked, not that he would descend into half-mocking humor about it. He guessed such badassery just couldn't be appreciated by someone like Demetri. "Hey, I didn't spend fourteen hours in a chair just for you to make fun of it," he threw back.

"C'mon, you know I'm just giving you a hard time," explained the other boy more sincerely.

Hawk didn't like the explanation. "Yeah, well, maybe I'm not looking for a hard time right now." He knew Demetri really didn't mean anything by it, but he wasn't in the mood to be mocked. The whole reason he went to go get inked in the first place was so he'd have something to showcase his newfound confidence, a metaphor for the new heights he was soaring as the badass Hawk.

"Sorry, Eli. It looks…nice," apologized Demetri, and he watched while Hawk scooped his t-shirt from off the floor and threw it on; Eli knew the sooner he got in the habit of always having a shirt on around the house, the better, in case his parents randomly decided to barge into his room one day. "So, how'd you get that, anyway?" Demetri inquired. "Pretty sure you gotta be eighteen in order to get ink in Cali. Well, unless you had parental approval, but everything I've come to know about your parents leads me to believe they one-hundred percent definitely would not be okay with that. Sooooo fake ID, I'm going to assume?"

"Yep," confirmed Hawk. He whipped out his crisp new fake identification card from his wallet and held it up to the phone screen. Eli didn't know much about fake IDs, but it looked legitimate enough when compared to his real one. And since it did its job and fooled the tattoo artist, it was certainly worth the $100 it cost.

"'_Walter Hawkman_'," read off Demetri, pursing his lips in mild distaste. "Nice Batman-villain name, at least you're committed to the gimmick." Seeing the hard look Hawk was giving him for that, he added, "I meant that in a positive way. C'mon, you love the Riddler, right?" Hawk very much doubted that he meant the comment positively, but decided to just drop the subject.

"Anyway, abrupt segue, you up to staying over at my place Friday night?" asked Demetri, apropos of nothing. "We haven't had a Badlarious Movie Night for a while. I managed to snag a bootleg of _Beastmaster 2_." He held up the copy as proof. "I don't even think you can get this legitimately on DVD, so you know it's gonna be great."

"_Through the Portal of Time_?" asked Eli for clarification, bringing his phone closer for a better look. Excitement spilled from his voice unguardedly, forgetting the strain of their conversation thus far.

Demetri smirked and confirmed a touch smugly, "The one and only. They say it's even worse than _Highlander 2_, and I don't mean the Director's Cut, I mean full on _Zeist_ terrible." Demetri loved collecting DVDs of movies that were so bad they were legendary, he always had. He and Eli even had a winter tradition of watching _The Star Wars Holiday Special_, Demetri had had a copy of it since they were kids and had riffed it years before famous Internet reviewers on YouTube. "You ready to enjoy Sarah Douglas in her prime?"

"Oh shit, man, I hear she was so hot in that," answered Eli with a little laugh as Demetri made a cupping motion with his hands at his chest to indicate he was also looking forward to watching the actress's "talents" in the film.

"Sounds like a plan then," said Demetri. "Pizza okay with you, maybe some popcorn? You might need to pick up a Diet Coke, though. Mom's back into her 'no artificial sweeteners' thing. It's either that, water, or Mom's 'tomato juice'."

Hawk couldn't help but be amused by how Demetri threw air quotes around tomato juice, bringing up the memory of how they'd almost gotten drunk off his mother's Bloody Mary that she'd left out on accident. "Heh, yeah, I'll pick up a two-liter."

"By the way," added Demetri off-handedly, "Mom said to tell you she got new rubber sheets for your waterbed, so you don't need to bring your own set this time."

A lead weight dropped in Eli's gut, and in an instant a flip inside him switched. A frown cracked his previous smile, and his brows knitted at the bridge of his nose. Why did Demetri have to ruin things by bringing _that_ up? "Actually," he said, his voice sharpening like a flint had been taken to it, "I can't make it over. I forgot, I got a thing on Friday."

The sudden shift almost gave Demetri whiplash. "Are you sure?" he asked, a hint of hurt breaking through his usual sardonic demeanor. "It's not something I said, is it? You've been asking forever to track down this movie, I thought you'd want to come over and watch."

So now Demetri was going to make him feel like the bad friend? Hawk dismissed his complaints. "Look, I don't have a lot of time for this right now. There's a tournament coming up, and Sensei is trying to push us to the next level. We might actually have a shot at winning."

"We have karate tournaments here in the Valley?" The look on Demetri's face showed he didn't completely buy into that explanation. "So instead of pizza and a movie, you're going to be practicing karate at 9:00PM on a Friday night, just so I understand?" he asked, hiding none of the skepticism in his voice.

Hawk practically fumed at the accusatory tone being thrown at him. He bit back with, "Yeah, 'cause unlike _you_, I don't quit just because I got thrown to the mat once like a complete pussy!" That hit landed its mark, as he forced Demetri to remember when he had quit Cobra Kai after Sensei Lawrence had made an example of him in front of the class for mouthing off at him. Demetri may have been a quitter, but _he_ wasn't.

"Eli!" exclaimed Demetri, the single word full of unconcealed distress.

"And don't call me Eli," he snapped. "It's Hawk now. Look, my Dad's calling for me, I gotta go." He pressed the red x to close out of Facetime, cutting Demetri off before he could say anything else. That left him alone in his room, fuming without a good reason.

The rage rose out of nowhere, and it was undoubtedly disproportionate to what had stirred it in the first place. It filled Hawk with a hot surge of energy. He tossed his phone back on his bed, and then instantly set off in the motions of shadow-boxing, throwing jab punches against an imaginary opponent. He did this for a solid fifteen minutes straight, working himself until sweat started pouring down his forehead, until the jabs became erratic and fitful, like instead of practicing karate he was actually throwing a tantrum. He kept going at it until the snarling wild fury inside him calmed down.

The room filled with the sounds of him trying to catch his breath. Eli simply stood still for a moment, listening to his erratic gulps of air. The intensity of his own anger had caught him off guard. Why had he been so mad about that call from Demetri? Why had he suddenly felt so threatened?

"Get it together," Hawk whispered to himself under his breath. "It's alright…." There wasn't any point in getting himself so worked up over nothing. He certainly wasn't in any danger.

Nobody was ever going to hurt him again.

_Your best ain't shit! If you want to win the All-Valley Under 18 Karate Tournament, you gotta give me better than your best._

Hawk had been strolling down the boardwalk of the beach when he heard a friendly voice call out to him. "Hey Hawk, we missed you at the dojo today." Aisha waved from across a business stand and shuffled through the small crowd to join him.

His face heated a little in embarrassment and he rubbed his upper right arm, trying not to wince at the soreness; the lower part of his arm was still wrapped in medical bandages. "I wanted to go," he said, "but I wasn't feeling too hot after the hospital visit yesterday. My mom said maybe some ocean air would do me good." He felt weak admitting that, like it was just some pathetic excuse to miss class, but it was true. In some way, that made it even worse because it meant he _was_ weak. He was glad Aisha was by herself, that Miguel and the other guys weren't with her to see him being so pathetic. Not after all the progress he'd made in Cobra Kai to improve his image.

Giving him a sympathetic smile, Aisha said, "You got bit on the ass by a big junkyard dog and now you have to get rabies shots. I think everyone understands if you miss a couple classes, even Sensei."

Her reassurances did nothing to appease his mental self-flogging. "It's so close to the All-Valley Tournament. I should be training, not sitting at home like some wangless loser." The memory of the events at the junkyard still put him to shame. He'd been the only student who got bit by one of the dogs, it had mauled him on his posterior, and then on his lower right arm when he tried to stop it; because he hadn't been vigilant enough, he hadn't been tough enough, hadn't been skilled enough to get on top of that car. The whole experience had been humiliating.

Worse, he'd had no choice but to admit it to his parents. Granted, he left out the part that this had all been part of a training course in a dangerous scrapyard at Sensei Lawrence's instruction, and he may have given his mom and dad the impression that he was just randomly mauled by a dog while walking home from Reseda. Another lie.

But the thing that guilted Eli most of all was knowing he'd cost his parents $10,000 in medical bills because of his ineptitude. They weren't taking any chances, they said. The skin was broken, he was getting the shots. Sure, they reassured him that it was okay, this obviously wasn't his fault, so there was no reason for him to be upset. But Eli knew it _was_ his fault. He didn't even blame Sensei for sicking the mutts on them in the first place. He only had himself to hold responsible for not getting on top of the car and out of the way of the dogs.

Aisha changed her approach while she and Hawk continued walking. "Did you know in the past, the standard rabies vaccination involved up to twenty-one shots in the stomach? Guess you dodged a real bullet there. But I hear even those modern shots can hurt like a real bitch. You'd still have to be pretty badass to get through all of them." That soothed Eli a little. "How many more do you have to get?"

"My next shot's in four days," he answered, "and then the last one is next week. But it's okay, I'll be at practice on Thursday. I won't miss another one." Truth be told, it wasn't the shots themselves that hurt. The doctor had told him there might be side-effects to the vaccines. Nausea was making his insides cramp, and his muscles were aching so bad that he knew he wouldn't be able to tolerate the physical exertion at Cobra Kai. How much was this going to set him back, he wondered? He'd just have to work ten times as hard at the next practice, and all the time between then and the tournament to make up for it.

"Hmm, now I'm not a doctor or anything," pointed out Aisha, pushing her backpack strap up her shoulder, "but I do know applying cold pressure usually helps with things like this, so my official diagnosis is that we should go and pick up a prescription at Baskin-Robbins."

Dessert honestly did not sound all that appetizing to Eli at the moment. His stomach was still rumbling with nausea. He hadn't even been able to eat lunch that afternoon, just the idea of it had sounded gross to him. But, having missed hanging out with his friends at Cobra Kai, he didn't want to be a let-down again. So he smirked and said, "Hell yeah, sounds like good medicine to me."

"Great, let's go!" With a smile, the two of them walked passed various touristy businesses lined up along the boardwalk, vendors set up to sell cheap merchandise to unsuspecting visitors who'd showed up for a day on the beach. It wasn't too far a stroll until they arrived at the ice-cream shop, dinging the bell on the door and grabbing the attention of the underpaid employee as they entered.

Eli's eyes scanned the array of flavors, and they lit up when he spotted a tub of bright blue, red, and yellow. "Sweet, they got Superman ice-cream!" he exclaimed in almost boyish excitement. Catching himself though, he cleared his throat and put back on his cool airs. "Yeah, I'll take a sugar cone of that, single scoop," he told the employee, handing over a twenty-dollar-bill from his wallet. With a smug wink at Aisha, he added, "I got the lady's too."

"Oh, in that case, the lady is definitely getting two scoops," Aisha responded with a smile in return. Hawk chuckled at her tenacity. "Can I have a cup of Rocky Road and, uhhhhh, Butter Pecan." The two took their ice-cream and walked out to the pier so they could have a nice view of the ocean waves as they ate.

For a while, they made small talk. Aisha filled him in on what he'd missed at practice. He told her the details of what a rabies shot entailed. They kept chatting, interspersed with moments of licking ice-cream, until a ping came from Aisha's hoodie, and she pulled out her phone for a check. Hawk heard her scoff and watched her face get stern, the way she bit her lower lip hard before she shook her head and put her phone back away. Taking another lick of his ice-cream, he asked her, "What's up? Bad news?"

Swallowing her own spoonful of dessert, she answered, "It's Sam."

"The one Miguel went on a date with? Did you hear the rumor she put out for Kyler on their first date?" He chuckled under his breath, not without a hint of mean-spiritedness. "Heh, right on, Miguel, he knows how to pick 'em."

Aisha couldn't help but roll her eyes a little at his dudebro-esque comment, but she clarified further. "Actually, I knew Sam before all that. Remember, I told you guys she and I have been friends since, like, elementary school."

"Oh. Right." Hawk's cheeky grin fell into a lop-sided frown in embarrassment. Way for him to stick his foot in his mouth. "Uh, sorry."

"Oh no, she and I aren't on good terms right now, don't worry about that," Aisha cleared up. "I mean, if Miguel wants to hook up with her, whatever, that's fine." But from the way her face hardened ever so slightly as she took an especially angry spoonful of ice-cream, Hawk could tell she really didn't believe the situation was fine at all. It had to be an awkward situation, for one of her friends to be dating an ex-friend. Seemed like there was a lot of room for tension there.

The nausea in Hawk's gut churned some more, making him lurch a little. But he put it out of his mind. Taking a big bite out of his cone, he asked, "So what's the beef between you guys anyway?"

Letting out a big sigh, Aisha returned the question with one of her own. "Remember how Sam used to hang with Yasmine and her Queen Bee Alpha Bitch Club?" Hawk laughed a little at her description, but then he recalled that it had been Yasmine who had made Aisha go viral online, who had made her life a living hell there for quite a while, who still hadn't completely taken Aisha off her radar. Yasmine, without a doubt, was the meanest girl in school. What kind of person did that make Sam that she would've wanted to hang out with her? Especially when she was already friends with a cool girl like Aisha?

"Did Sam have something to do with the Instagram post?" he asked, suddenly feeling the stirrings of protectiveness on her behalf.

"She may as well have." Aisha ate another two mouthfuls of her ice-cream while Hawk wolfed down the rest of his cone. "She just stood there and didn't do anything when Yasmine posted it. Sam didn't say anything when her new friend called me fugly, when she said that I was a fat pig. She didn't even call her out online, I mean she did literally nothing to stand up for me."

Hawk tightened his jaw. "Sounds like a total bitch."

"Yeah," agreed Aisha. "The most she ever did was try to tell me it would blow over eventually. Like, no shit, but that doesn't take back the fact that it happened. People aren't ever really going to forget it. I definitely won't." Eli empathized with Aisha. He knew a thing or two about cyber-bullying, the absolute mortification one felt when being ganged up on social media. Wasn't it bad enough to be picked on by the students at school? Why did it have to follow them everywhere online? It meant nowhere was safe. If someone gave you a black eye in the locker room, you could at least heal from that. The scars from mean words, the pain of having your friend stand back and do nothing when bullies hurt you, well who knew how long any of that took to get better.

"You know what the worst part is?" Aisha bit her lip again and looked down over the pier at the ocean current, her brown eyes startlingly sad. "She hasn't even apologized to me. Like, after things with her and her fake friends finally got ugly, she thought she could just slide right back into being friends with me. She actually tried to sit with me at the lunch table, after everything she did. Can you believe that? It was like she really thought she could just put me on hold while she had fun with Yasmine and Kyler, and as soon as that backfired, it was back to Aisha the doormat."

Wanting to think of something comforting to say, but not wanting to risk dipping into mushy shit, Hawk told her, "Well, at least now you can kick her ass if she hurts you like that again."

A sharp, almost self-deprecating giggle escaped Aisha, and she tossed her empty cup and spoon into the nearby trash bin. "Ha! Doubt it. She took karate for years, way before any of us. Her dad used to be this big deal in the Valley when it came to karate. She's probably, like, a second-degree blackbelt or something."

"So?" rebutted Hawk, affectionately nudging her with his elbow. "You're still probably better. C'mon, you're Cobra Kai. You're badass!" That cheered her up some, judging by how her smile brightened and got a little less cynical. She patted him on the shoulder for a wordless thanks, which in turn made him feel better for helping her out. Aisha was Cobra Kai, just like he was. They had to stick together. It was them versus all the assholes in the world.

Aisha's cellphone pinged again, but this time it didn't upset her when she looked at the message. And, a few seconds later, Hawk's went off, too. "It's Miguel," he said as he unlocked his screen.

"He texted me, too," said Aisha. "Same thing to you, about wanting to catch a movie after practice on Thursday?"

His stomach lurched again, this time much more forcefully, and it had nothing to do with the text. "Y-Yeah," he answered, reaching out to grab the rail of the pier with his free hand while the other tucked his phone back in his shorts pocket. "S-Sounds like a plan…."

"Hey, are you okay?" Aisha asked, taking a step back but reaching out a hand to grab his arm in order to help steady him. "You're looking a little green right now. Maybe you should — oh shit!" Thinking fast, she swung him around by his elbow just in time to get him to lean over the railing, where he promptly began puking his ice-cream back up, straight down into the ocean's crashing waves below.

Eli felt like his stomach had been pile-driven into, as if someone was squeezing all its contents out. He had no control over it until the last dribble of bile spilled from his trembling lips, when he then felt Aisha's hands on his shoulders, helping him turn around and sit down on the pier. Even worse than the cold, clammy perspiration on his skin were the passing looks of mild concern from strangers as they walked by the teenagers.

"Here," offered Aisha, handing him a napkin she'd rushed to grab from a nearby stand. Eli accepted it, wiping the sickness from his face. He kept the napkin hovered over his upper lip in a moment of self-consciousness, paranoid that every single passerby was surely staring at his scar, rather than at the kid with the mohawk who'd just blown chunks over the railing.

One of them approached Hawk and Aisha. "Hey, you okay?" asked a young man, who appeared to be a college student, judging by the print on his t-shirt.

Before Aisha could say anything, Hawk blurted out from behind the napkin, "Y-Yeah, no big, just getting over a two-day bender." He had to give himself credit, he was getting pretty good at this lying thing. Sensei would've been especially proud of that one. "You know how crazy those frat parties get, amirite?"

He may have looked a pale, sickly mess, but he said the lie with such confidence that it convinced the college student. "Right, I got you. Next time? Take some milk thistle. Makes all the difference." Hawk flashed him a thumb's up, and, satisfied he'd done his part as a good samaritan, the young man went on his way. But not before pointing out, "By the way, sweet hair, bruh." It almost made the whole thing worth it.

Sitting down beside Hawk, Aisha twisted a spare napkin in her hands and said, "Sorry, I guess ice-cream wasn't so great an idea after all."

"It's okay," Hawk mumbled, hesitantly lowering the napkin from his mouth. "It's not your fault." It was his, for being unable to just man up, for being such a complete wuss that a fucking shot would make him sick to his stomach. Looking over at Aisha with his now bloodshot eyes, he implored her, "Don't tell Miguel and the others about this."

The request confused Aisha, and she raised a skeptical brow. It seemed like such a silly thing to ask. "Hey, it's not like you're the first guy to puke in public," she reassured him. "You're probably not even the first guy to puke on the pier this week."

She just didn't get it, thought Hawk. That wasn't really her fault either, though. She was a girl, she was allowed to be vulnerable, chicks could be sensitive and emotional, it was almost expected of them. But Hawk finally had a rep now. People were starting to see him as the ass-kicking student from Cobra Kai. He was gaining respect, and he had to protect that at all costs. Nobody could think he was still dweeby Eli.

"You can't tell them!" he practically begged. "_Please_ don't!"

Aisha's eyes reflected pity back onto him, which made him only feel worse. Nonetheless, she gave him a soft nod and swore, "Alright, I won't."


	4. Venom

_Eli here is the homecoming king. Gets laid more than anyone. Isn't that right, Eli?_

Eli had only ever put himself on the line for a girl one time, and that had been enough. It was the summer between Sixth and Seventh Grade, and his parents had sent him back to Jewish camp, like they sometimes did. While Eli enjoyed most of the technical activities well enough, he didn't like that Demetri wasn't there with him to keep him company, which meant even though he was surrounded by other children, Eli was largely alone.

Then, for a couple of nights, he'd returned to his bunk to find letters left on his bed, notes signed by a girl at the camp named Rachel. The first letter told him she'd been watching him in the mess hall and thought he was cute. The next day, Eli had tried to manifest the courage to approach her at the lunch table she sat at with the other girls, but he was too shy. He just watched her from his table, picking at his sloppy-joe, hoping maybe she'd get up and approach him first. But she didn't.

The second letter was even more glowing than the first. Rachel said she considered Eli to be smart and funny, and that he seemed like a really cool guy. Eli had been called many things in his short lifetime, but never "cool." Still, he couldn't gather the bravery necessary to go talk to Rachel the next day at Hebrew practice. His mind filled with the thousand ways that could go wrong. After all, what if he made a fool of himself?

So, the next night, she left him the third letter, saying she finally wanted to speak with him in person, and asked him to meet her outside the boys' cabin after curfew. She signed it with a promise that she had a special surprise for him if he showed up. Had he possessed more life experience than he possibly could at twelve years old, he might've noticed the warning signs and stayed in his bunk.

Because the whole thing had been a prank. That night, outside the cabin, after he'd at last mustered the nerve to meet up with Rachel, four boys ganged up on him. They mocked him for thinking any girl would find him cute. He wasn't cool; he was a nerd, a loser, and a freak. They beat him with socks filled with tennis balls for good measure and dumped leftover sloppy-joe beef on his head to drive the point home.

Eli couldn't take it. Staying at camp while suffering from sleep enuresis was bad enough, but this had been too much to handle. He called his parents and wouldn't stop crying until they agreed to come pick him up. He never went back to that camp again, and from that day forward refused to believe girls would ever find him to be boyfriend material.

At least until that night, at the party the Cobras threw at the canyon.

She had shown up with Yasmine and Kyler's gang when Aisha had preemptively crashed the Queen Bee's birthday party. Somehow, their eyes met from across the light of the campfire. Moon smiled. Hawk smiled back. And that's how it started. As soon as Moon stepped on the sand, Hawk remembered the first rule of Cobra Kai, and decided to strike first. "Hey," he said simply, smooth as silk. It came out as cool to his ears as when he'd played out the scenario in his head before. It was coming more naturally to him now.

"Hey," Moon returned, her smile brightening more as she pushed her hair over her shoulder, just to give her hand something to do. Eli had never really seen her up close before; they only had a couple classes together, most of the time he'd only ever seen her from several desks over or at the other end of the lunch hall. Hawk had never properly noticed how pretty she was, with her warm brown eyes.

"Allow me to be a gentleman and get you a beer?" he offered and when she nodded he grabbed a bottle from the cooler and a red cup, pouring her a glass. He couldn't help but throw in a little brag as he did it. "I'm the one who got the supply. Help yourself. There's plenty to go around for the whole night."

"Thanks," she said, gladly taking the cup offered. "It's…Eli, right?"

Moon knew his name? For how long? He couldn't allow himself to be freaked out over this revelation. He had to keep his cool. "People call me Hawk," he told her, a tiny smirk curling up on the edge of his lip.

"Like the bird?" asked Moon, taking a sip of her beer while her eyes traveled slowly up to gaze at his blue mohawk. "Or the hair?"

Hawk could see the admiration she had for his cut so clearly, and that only fueled his confidence more. Any lingering fear that she might only be setting him up to make fun of his lip vanished. He had to fight against the very efficient defenses he'd spent years building for fear of ridicule in order to let Moon through that door to his heart. But he had to do it. How else was he ever going to get a girlfriend if he didn't take a chance? He wasn't a flincher anymore, Sensei had seen to that. So he took a step towards her, closing the space between them. "Both," he answered. Her smile widened, and seeing how attractive the slight dimples in her cheeks made her look when she grinned, Hawk could say he was well and truly smitten.

The two sat and talked for a while, getting used to each other's company. Moon told him she loved his haircut, it was so bold and expressive, and Hawk got the suspicion that she secretly loved bad boys, despite her being something of a hippy. That suited him just fine. He was undoubtedly the baddest one in the group. He needed to make sure she saw him as his new self, not whatever image she might've carried over of him as the dorky nerd sinking into an oversized sweater a couple lunch tables over.

"I got a pretty awesome tat," he bragged to her. "Maybe one day I can show it to you."

Moon couldn't help but giggle, telling him, "I'd like that. Tattoos are such a great way for one to express themselves, what better, more meaningful art could there be than the ones we're willing to carry around on our bodies? My mom says she's willing to take me and get one. I just haven't found a design that calls to me. I was thinking either a peace-sign or a sunflower, but I don't know yet."

A girl who was cool with the idea of getting tattoos, and put real thought into their meaning. Was she the girl of his dreams, or what? "If you ever think of one, I know the man to hook you up," offered Hawk. "He did mine, name's Rico. Guy's a magician." He said it as though he had real expertise, and not just because Rico was the first he'd asked and the one who'd fallen for his fake ID. But the hawk on his back had taken real artistic skill. Hawk had been lucky to land on Rico and had no qualms sending more business his way.

They continued to chat, sipping beer away from the other partying teenagers. Demetri was somewhere, awkwardly watching them, unwilling to make a move on another girl himself. Miguel, who had been a real drag the entire party as he periodically checked his phone for any indication that his girlfriend was planning to show up, kept chugging beers like it was a sport.

Then Hawk's gaze fell on Aisha, standing a couple feet away from the cooler, her eyes drifting between her own phone and Moon, and his smile faltered some. Undoubtedly, she noticed the way he and Moon were starting to hit it off, and Hawk couldn't help but think how must have felt to Aisha. One of her friends was already dating someone who had hurt her, as rocky as that relationship between Miguel and Sam had recently become. What would it feel like if yet another friend did the same thing?

Guilt stirred inside him, clenching his gut. He was beginning to really like Moon, but Aisha was Cobra Kai. He couldn't just do that to her without at least trying to make things right. So, downing the beer in his cup for liquid courage before turning to face Moon, he confessed, "You know we crashed Yasmine's party on purpose tonight right?"

Caught by surprise by the question, Moon took another sip of her own drink, her eyes scanning the crowd to find her friend. Yasmine stood far away from the group, arms crossed, a look of pure spite chiseled on her face as she stared angrily at the water. Hawk followed her gaze, and his brow furrowed. He still thought Yasmine deserved to have Rico tattoo "bitch" across her forehead for refusing to leave Aisha alone, or just for being such a miserable person in general. "It did seem like a big coincidence that you guys would've thrown your party here first," Moon said, embarrassed on Yasmine's behalf. After all, tonight was supposed to be for her birthday.

"It was Aisha's idea," Hawk explained further, tilting his head in the girl's direction. Moon's cheeks flushed red, and Hawk doubted it was due to the alcohol she'd been drinking. "She wanted to get back at Yasmine for posting that Instagram pic. You know the one." Moon sank into her shoulders a little, further ashamed to be reminded of her own complacency in that. At least she looked remoresful, Hawk thought. Yasmine certainly would never show regret for her actions. "I don't get it," he said, nursing his empty cup between his hands. "You seem like you're too nice to hang around someone like Yasmine. Why would you let her do something like that?"

"I don't know," confessed Moon, self-consciously tucking her hair behind her shoulder again, casting her eyes down. But she didn't fight him over anything he was saying. Maybe that meant she already had a bad conscience for what had happened at the Halloween dance and her role in it. "I know Yasmine can sometimes be mean, but she's not so terrible when you've been around her enough." She barely sounded like she believed the words coming out of her mouth.

Seeing that opening, Hawk nudged some more. "You guys really hurt her, you know. The whole school picked on her for weeks after that, they called her all sorts of ugly names. Yasmine still makes fun of her weight, she just did it today on Instagram again. And you're okay with that?" He expected that would be it, that Moon would stand up and go, and that would be the end of everything else between them.

To his surprise, however, Moon looked at him like a confessioner, guiltily pressing her lips together tightly before admitting, "You're right." It sounded like someone unloading the burden of a lot of weight from her shoulders from the way she said it. "You're right. I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry."

He hadn't expected her to just come out and say that. There was probably nothing else she could've said just then to make him even more smitten with her. But Hawk knew it couldn't be done just with that. That apology wasn't his to accept. "Thanks, but it's not me you should be saying sorry to," he told her, but softening it with the return of his smile as he jutted his chin back out at Aisha.

Moon looked over at the other girl for a few silent minutes before standing up and walking over to where Aisha stood. Hawk gave them a little bit of privacy, walking over to refill his cup with fresh beer, taking a few gulps before following shortly afterwards. He could hear that Moon had already started her apology as he hovered by their side and listened.

"…and I know I can't take back what happened," Moon told Aisha, placing a hand on her arm. Girls were always so touchy-feely, thought Hawk. "But I want to tell you I'm so sorry about what I did. I should've stopped Yasmine from making that horrible post, and I didn't. I'm sorry for hurting you like that."

For a moment, Hawk thought Aisha might remain unmoved by Moon's words. Forgiveness was a personal thing, after all. But there, highlighted by the nearby fire, Aisha's face softened, and she allowed herself the simplicity of a smile to cross her lips. "Thanks, Moon," she said, gently touching the other girl's hand in return. Eli knew than that Aisha at last would be able to get some closure for what had been done to her. He almost envied her that, but then Hawk dismissed his own envious feelings. Working out shit like this, through talking it out, was a chick thing; guys had to make their own closure, with their fists.

Things later may have gotten tumultuous at the party once Miguel's girlfriend showed up, but all-in-all Hawk went to bed that night before the All-Valley Tournament on cloud nine. Not only had he got to watch Aisha give Yasmine the most epic melvin in documented history, but he now also had his first girlfriend. A girl was actually interested in him.

All thanks to flipping the script. Joining Cobra Kai had been the best decision he'd ever made in his life. He couldn't remember the last time he went to sleep so happy.

_Prepare to face the fury of the Hawk._

He didn't tell his parents about the All-Valley Tournament because he didn't want them to attend. They would just embarrass him if he won, and if he lost he didn't want to deal with their pity. Besides, one look at some of those Karate Moms made him cringe, and if his own mom ever turned into one, Hawk believed he might legit have buried himself into a hole and never come out.

Besides, he didn't need them for moral support. Despite his misgivings about the influence of karate on Eli, Demetri had showed up for him and Miguel. And now Hawk had Moon cheering for him in the stands, and that motivated him more than almost everything. He wanted to show off for her especially, let her know he was a winner.

The Cobras were a force to be reckoned with. Despite being a new group, they tore through their adversaries like seasoned veterans, a testament to the training their Sensei had bestowed on them. Before the end of the day, they would make sure that everyone would remember the name Cobra Kai, the most badass name for a dojo there ever was or ever would be. And they would show to this crowd that although all of them had come to karate as underdogs, none of them should ever be underestimated.

They all had their own unique fighting styles. Miguel was first and foremost a pragmatist, avoiding flashier moves for the sake of simple attacks designed to take opponents down in the most ruthless and efficient way possible. Aisha was a wall, absorbing the hits from her rivals in an effort to exhaust them, and then once they showed a moment of weakness, she would strike the finishing blow. Bert, well Bert tried.

And then there was Hawk. Sensei Lawrence had taught them that the best defense was more offense, and, even more so than Miguel, Hawk embraced that lesson. He preferred to absolutely whale into his enemies, to decimate them with a barrage of constant punches and kicks that they had no time to counter attack. He had come to understand that the only way to ensure nobody ever laid a hand on him again was to destroy them before they had the chance to. He had the power to brutally stop anyone before they could hurt him, and he was fully prepared to prove that to anyone willing to question it.

He plowed through his opponents, just like Miguel, making his way to the semi-finals. All of the fighting invigorated him, filled with with even more energy and rejuvenation than when he was practicing at the Cobra Kai dojo. Here, finally, he was proving to the public that he was no longer wimpy little Eli Moskowitz. He was Hawk, and he was badass. He wanted everyone to know that.

Miguel faced off against the previous year's champion from Topanga, and kicked his ass, just as everyone in Cobra Kai knew he would. That just left Hawk to deal with Robby Keene before he and Miguel could duke it out in the finals and prove who between them was the best fighter of their dojo. Hawk couldn't wait for that match, he practically itched for it. He and his friend had sparred plenty of times by this point, and Hawk had come a long way. He'd come so far, he thought he legit had a shot by now at being the best. All he had to do first was beat Robby.

Sensei had a serious look on his face, one Hawk hadn't seen when he'd faced up against any of his other opponents. That was weird. There didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary about Robby, other than that he seemed to be pretty talented for a guy who was fighting unaffiliated. Did his teacher think he might actually have trouble against him? He should know him better than that. After all, Sensei had taught him everything he knew. "Something wrong, Sensei?" asked Hawk.

Pulled from his deep thoughts, Sensei Lawrence blinked himself back to the present. "No," he answered, although the serious expression didn't falter. "Show him what you got." Hawk certainly didn't need to be told twice. An avian fierceness radiated from him, and he gave Miguel a quick fist bump before leaping on the mat to face his enemy.

As soon as the referee told them to fight, Robby opened with a series of kicks, what seemed to be his preferred starting attack, which forced his adversary towards the edge of the bounds of the mat. Hawk blocked his kicks, refusing to allow him to make the contact point. And once Robby thought he had him caught at the mat's bounds, he let his guard down for a second. Hawk saw his opportunity and struck. Wrapping his arms around Robby's ribs, he lifted and threw him to the floor, where Robby landed defenseless on his back, giving the Cobra Kai student his chance to land a punch to his exposed chest. "One point, Hawk," announced the ref. The other Cobras cheered.

Backing away, Hawk gave his opponent time to stand up and make his way back to his spot for the next round. Suddenly, a voice broke out from among the crowd. "Remember what you learned, Robby!" Hawk followed Robby's glance over to the source of the encouragement. It had come from Sam's father, Mr. LaRusso. What was that about, Hawk could only wonder? Whatever was between them, it had some sort of effect on Robby. The other boy closed his eyes and took a calming breath, loosening up with a kata.

Hawk scoffed and resumed his fighting position. Robby's eyes remained closed, even when the ref gave the signal to fight again. Well, if his opponent wanted to give himself such a disadvantage, that was his mistake. Hawk went in for a striking kick, fully prepared to land a second point, when Robby's eyes shot open; he blocked the kick, and, planting his hand on Hawk's back, shoved him forward.

Recovering, Hawk circled back on the offensive. He tried to kick again, only to have that blocked, too. Robby threw a punch, which Hawk managed to evade, but it was a fake-out. Robby turned right back around and nailed him with a roundhouse kick to the face. "One point, Keene."

Picking himself off the ground, Hawk raised a hand to his lip, checking to make sure there was no blood. Satisfied, he sauntered back to his area, but made sure to show his rival that he was in no way intimidated by that hit. Like a cobra that had spread its hood to give warning, he postured, "That was a lucky point. It's gonna be your last."

"Why?" asked Robby, returning his attitude with a smug smile, confidence practically dripping from the word. "You leaving early to fix that stupid haircut?"

_stupid haircut_

At hearing that, Eli's heart pounded in his tightening chest, pumping blood so loudly in his ears it blocked out the noise of the crowd, whom Eli was sure had heard Robby, whom were surely laughing at him now. Of course they had to be laughing at him, everyone always did. Their laughter sounded like Kyler's, it sounded like Brucks's, it sounded like the voices of so many people whose jeering chuckles Eli was so familiar with.

Something inside Hawk snapped. He furrowed his brow to the bridge of his nose, and his face hardened like granite, casting a furious scowl. Who did this Robby Keene think Hawk was? Just some doormat he could walk over? How dare this asshole make fun of his haircut? How dare he mock the very thing Eli had gotten to stop being bullied in the first place? _Why couldn't people just stop making fun of him?_

At that moment, standing on the karate mat, fighting in the semi-finals, the rival turning away from him wasn't even Robby. He was everyone who had ever decided Eli was someone worth ridiculing, he was all the people who'd ever called him demeaning names, who'd put their hands on him, who made it their goal to terrorize him. And Hawk was sick of it. He wasn't going to take it anymore.

Nobody was ever going to hurt him again.

The fury boiled inside him, slithering through his veins, coiling up his spine, until it finally spilled over. He was prepared to free those hot flames and burn everyone around him, not caring if it seared him in return. The inferno inside of him was more than he could manage to contain anymore. Rage had been building up like a powerful water tide in him for months, and now Hawk broke the dam and released the current, letting his anger flood out without a single regard to the consequences. Strike First. Strike Hard. No Mercy.

He pushed past the ref, and, raising his leg back into a powerful coil, as his Sensei had taught him to do, struck Robby brutally in the back of his shoulder-blade. Instantly, his enemy was on the ground, curled in a ball of pain, and the referee had his arms around Hawk, pushing him away from the injured participant before he could inflict anymore damage; which, so blinded by rage was he, Hawk might just have done.

Shoving a finger in Hawk's face, the ref told him, "That's enough! Illegal contact. You're disqualified."

Disqualified?! "Bullshit!" he spat back, twisting out of the referee's hold, and the only thing that kept the venom from spitting more vulgar words from his mouth was his Sensei smacking his shoulder.

"What the hell are you thinking, man?" Sensei Lawrence exclaimed. Hawk expected that his Sensei would at least stand behind him. Sensei had been the one to teach him how to defend himself against people who would hurt him, he'd been the one to transform him from Lip into Hawk. But there was no pride to be found in Johnny Lawrence's expression. Just shock and disappointment.

Confused by his Sensei's lack of encouragement, and still wound up, Hawk clenched his jaw protectively and countered in return, "What was I supposed to do? Be a pussy?" The question seemed to pierce some sort of armor that Sensei Lawrence was wearing, as he just silently watched while Hawk walked over to the others, leaving it at that for now.

The lack of comfort from his Sensei, Hawk instead found in his teammates. The other guys were full of nothing but reassurance. Sensei, after all, had told Hawk to show that Robby Keene what he had, and that was exactly what Hawk had done. "It's okay, Hawk," Miguel consoled him, clasping an arm warmly around his shoulder. "I'll finish him off for you." He said it with complete fervor, like this was a personal matter to him.

That placated Hawk somewhat, dumping a little cold water on the flames, leaving him to stand in the steam of his own making.


	5. Scar

_I was born with a cleft lip. This is the scar from the surgery._

_You mean it was worse before that? Or did the doctor just screw up?_

"Is there something you want to tell us, young man?"

As soon as Hawk stepped through the door, still riding the high from the Cobra Kai victory celebration dinner, his parents leveled the question at him from where they had been waiting for his arrival at the kitchen table. Eli's gut dropped like a lead weight and it immediately felt like his heart had leapt into this throat. They must have discovered something. Oh shit! They must've seen Aisha's Instagram post where she blabbed about the fake ID. Oh shit, he was so dead.

But the expression on his parents' faces wasn't stern. They didn't look angry at all. Instead, they looked amused. "So," said his mother with a smile, "when were you going to tell us about that girl?"

Still firmly in fight-or-flight mode, seriously considering making a run back for the door, Hawk blinked in confusion. "Huh?"

"The one in the photo you posted on your Instagram," clarified his father, accepting a photograph being handed to him by his wife before setting it inside a big book in front of him. Giving his son a wink, he asked, "Your mother caught a quick glimpse of it a little while ago. Who is she? A girlfriend?"

"Oh. Oh!" As it clicked in Eli's mind that he wasn't about to get in trouble, he took a calming breath and relaxed his muscles. "Uh, her name is Moon," he explained, setting his gym bag on the floor and making his way to the kitchen table. "We met last night. I mean, she was in a couple of my classes, but we didn't ever really talk until last night. And, uh, yeah. Guess you could say she's my girlfriend. We hung out tonight with the guys from Cobra Kai. She's really great."

His parents couldn't have possibly looked happier or more relieved for him than they did at that moment. Their smiles lit up their whole faces. After all, they had watched as their meek son grew in confidence the past several months, finally coming out of his protective shell. Him getting new friends had already made them overjoyed. Now to hear that he finally had a girlfriend, one would think he'd told them he had won the Nobel Peace Prize or something; for years they'd tried reassuring him that one day he would find a girl (or boy, his parents had made it clear that he was allowed to explore who he was attracted to) who would love him for who he was.

"That's great, Eli!" exclaimed his mother, getting off her chair to reach over and give him a kiss on his cheek as soon as he joined them by the table. "Let's invite her over for dinner soon. Maybe on Tuesday?"

That sounded like a terrible idea to Hawk, but he couldn't just come out and say that. "Uh, maybe later. I mean, we just started going out. It's a little soon for that."

His mother patted his shoulder understandingly. "Alright. But let her know she's invited over anytime."

"I will, Mom." Hawks eyes then scanned the kitchen table, which had been strewn with what had to be around two-hundred photographs. He'd never seen so many actual physical pictures in his life in one pile. After all, who still printed them when everything was digital nowadays? "What's all this?" he asked, picking up a random photo, one of his parents' wedding.

"Well, you know it's your Bubbe's birthday next weekend," explained his mother, sitting back down in her chair, "and all she asked for was a scrapbook full of pictures of the family. I went and got all of these made today."

"Oh, you and Bubbe are talking again?" asked Hawk with a knowing grin.

His father returned the smirk with one of his own. "Of course, didn't you hear, it's almost her birthday." Every year it was the same. Eli's grandmother would travel from Florida to visit the family for Passover. There, she and his mom would get into an argument over his mom serving kitniyot. The house would turn into a veritable war zone, and it happened every. single. year. Part of the fun of having his mom's side be Sephardic while his dad's was Ashkenazic: epic fights during Pesach, when eating rice and green peas became Serious Business. But inevitably, Eli's mom and grandmother would make up before the latter's birthday. And, honestly, Eli got the feeling they only argued over it just for the sake of having something to complain about.

"Why does she want a scrapbook?" asked Hawk, shuffling some of the pictures around for curiosity's sake. "Don't you guys post whole albums for her on Facebook?" He'd had to be the one to set up his grandmother's phone and her Facebook account in the first place, almost exclusively for that reason.

"Yes, we do," answered his father, "but you know how old-fashioned and set in her ways she is."

"It's just a generational thing, Simon," said his wife, coming to her mother-in-law's defense.

Simon gave her a long-suffering look. "Ruth, I think she's just perpetually stuck in 1975. Listening to nothing but disco and having every Burt Reynolds movie on VHS can't just be summed up as a generational problem."

"I know, right?" agreed Hawk. "If you're gonna be stuck in the past, at least make it the 80s. Way better music, and the movies are awesome." His Sensei didn't know the difference between an iPad and laptop, he was completely technologically illiterate in a way that was absolutely mind blowing. But at least he had his coolness factor, and he'd introduced his dojo to the greatness of the 80s.

His parents seemed to find his opinion on that amusing, but Ruth told her son, "Well, go ahead and pull up a chair to help us. Bubbe specifically said she wanted pages and pages of you to show off to her friends. So sit down and pick out some photos of you that you think she'll like." That sounded like the most boring activity in the world, especially after the day Hawk had had, and the last thing he wanted to do at 9:00PM at night was help put together a scrapbook.

"Do I have to?" he asked.

His father pushed further, "The sooner you do, the sooner the whole thing will be out of your hair." Simon glanced at his son's mohawk and gave a little chuckle. "All six inches of it. C'mon, sit down. Humor your Bubbe, or your old man's never going to hear the end of it. Or you can just let us pick them, but then we might fill the whole thing full of cute Halloween pictures."

"Oh, look at this one!" Ruth played along, laying on her doting mother's voice thick as she held out the photo in her hand. "Remember when you were four and wanted to dress up as Robin from Batman?" Hawk bit his tongue to keep from correcting her that it was Robin from Teen Titans that he'd wanted to be that year. But the distinction didn't matter, that was pedantic nerd shit.

"That one's definitely a keeper," agreed Simon, taking the picture and gluing it into a page of the scrapbook.

Hawk's cheeks reddened self-consciously, hating the turn this night was taking. "Could you guys not embarrass me?"

"We're your parents, it's our job to embarrass you," his dad countered with a smile. Hawk was sure then that he made the right choice not to tell his parents about the All-Valley Tournament. And he was definitely right to hold off bringing Moon over to meet them. They would absolutely humiliate him.

Seeing how uncomfortable her son was becoming, Ruth reassured him, "Oh honey, relax, your Bubbe's only going to show these off to her retirement community, all the way at the other end of the country. Don't worry, none of your karate friends will see them, I know you have a 'rep' now." Did she really understand, though, Hawk wondered? "Come on, sit down and pick some out."

Hawk let out the most exaggerated sigh he could manage, but sat down in the chair and began to shift through the photographs to satisfy his parents. There were a lot of them, pictures taken as recent as a couple months prior to pretty much the beginning of his existence. What was it with parents and wanting to document every part of their kid's life that they could? He flipped through some: one of his fifth-grade graduation; another of him at a sci-fi convention; one of him and Demetri holding up the certificates they won at Computer Camp. They just kept going.

"Look at these from when you were a baby," said his mother lovingly, placing a handful of photos on top of the pile in front of him. Who in the history of ever enjoyed looking at baby pictures of themselves? Especially when they were an ugly baby, thought Hawk with disdain as he picked up one of the photographs. It was from his bris ceremony. Friends and family surrounded his parents, along with the doctor and mohel. And there was Eli, barely over a week old, in the arms of his maternal grandfather, being held up to show off.

Hawk's eyes closed in like a raptor's on his face, on the baby's unilateral cleft lip in particular. It was like a little black hole, the gap that went from the upper lip into his nostril. It was hideous. Why would his parents have ever wanted to show off their freak baby to the world? And the other pics were no better. There was one of him at three months, in his crib, his binky having slipped out of the gap of his mouth as he'd tried to suck on it. Another one of him at six months, when his parents tested giving him solid food, with horribly messy results thanks to that cleft lip.

More and more they kept going, showing highlights of his first year of life, and in each one his cleft lip stood out like a gross sore. And baby Eli was too young and stupid to realize how ugly he was, considering how often he was smiling in those pictures. Hawk would have liked to take a permanent marker and blot out his face in all of them.

He was almost 18 months old before he had his first surgery. Most babies with similar conditions had it done within the first six months, but Eli had had so many ear infections that his parents kept pushing it out. Maybe that was why his scar had turned out so badly. Either that, or maybe it was from the second time he'd needed surgery in elementary school, when it had caused issues in his speech development.

Maybe that was also part of the reason he never ended up with any siblings. Maybe his parents just didn't want to have anymore so they wouldn't have to go through the hassle again of raising an ugly baby and spending a small fortune to try and fix him. After all, the doctor hadn't been able to tell the Moskowitzes whether their son's cleft lip was related to bad genes or environmental factors. So perhaps it had just been better not to risk it.

"Eli? Honey, what's wrong?"

Without his being aware, a scowl had darkened Hawk's face, and his parents must have noticed. Softening his brow some, he set the pictures back on the table, but kept his eyes downcast. His mood was completely shot again, and his voice was barely a murmur when he responded to their concern. "It's been a long day," he said to them. "I'm pretty tired, and I got karate practice tomorrow. Can I just go to bed?"

By the look on her face, it seemed like his mother wanted to pry further, probably to ask him what was wrong so she could try and fix it, to go into full Mom Mode. But his dad put a hand on her shoulder to stop her, and said, "Of course, go ahead. We can finish this tomorrow night."

Hawk practically flew up from the chair, hurrying down the hallway towards his room without another word. He paused only when he passed his parents' room and saw their cellphones sitting on the night stand, plugged into their chargers. And the idea suddenly came into his head. Taking a few soft steps backward, he peered into the kitchen again to make certain they had reoccupied themselves with their scrapbook project. Having verified they were, without being detected, Hawk silently swooped into their room.

Breaking through their passcodes was simple. For as often as Eli had told them that using their birthdays as numerical passwords was a bad idea, and that they should've just set up their thumb-print lock on their iPhones, they wouldn't listen. Their ignorance was Hawk's advantage now, though. First, he opened his mother's, and pressed her Instagram app. He scrolled through her feed as fast as he could until he found the video Aisha had posted. Bringing up her profile, he had his mother mute her account. Hawk then did the same thing on his father's phone.

He was in and out of his parents' room in under three minutes. Now they would never find out about his fake ID. It would take them at least several days to find out they'd "accidentally" muted Aisha. That would give her time to post plenty of other things that didn't involve outing anything about him that might get him grounded for life.

After showering and changing into his pajamas, Hawk dried his hair off with a towel. He caught a long glimpse of himself in the mirror, behind the fog left by the steam. Without the paste and spray holding it up, his hair was nothing more than a blue undercut. He barely even looked like Hawk at all, it was like he was taking off a costume each night when he washed his mohawk away. Which only left Eli, and the scar on his lip that couldn't be scrubbed off.

His emotions had been on a rollercoaster ride all day. There had been his uncontrollable anger at the All-Valley Tournament, matched in intensity only by the elation he felt when Miguel defeated Robby Keene, giving Cobra Kai the victory they deserved. And now it had gone downhill again, transforming into a creeping depression, and he didn't know why. All Eli did know was that he was tired.

Turning off the lights, he crawled into bed, and turned on his phone. Wanting to get the images of himself from the photographs out of his head, Hawk opened Instagram and scrolled through the pictures that had been taken that day: one of him and all the Cobras together after they'd all changed back out of their gis, celebrating their victory in the parking lot; one of him, Miguel, and Aisha, sharing each other's food at the restaurant; one of him and Moon together, smiling at each other, the one his parents must have seen.

His teammates, his friends, his girlfriend. Hawk had had such a great time that evening with them, and now all he was worried about was what they would think of him if they ever saw the pictures of him that his parents had laid out. Would they see just how much of a freak he was under all of his confidence and karate skills, would they also make fun of him?

His persona as Hawk, the badass student of Cobra Kai with the killer haircut, that was the only way Eli could manage his life now. He couldn't go back to being Lip. Hawk would do anything to prevent that from happening, he would do everything in his power to keep his new life from being ripped from his hands. He would keep himself safe at any cost.

Nobody was ever going to hurt him again.

Since looking at Instagram pics wasn't improving his mood, Hawk turned off his phone and put it on its charger. He then rolled over and pulled the covers up to completely envelop him, letting his melancholia lull him to sleep. Tomorrow would be a new, better day.

_So, what happens when you get blocked? You counter-punch._

Hawk's phone pinged from his pocket. Taking it out, he saw the text Moon had just sent him, and smiled:

_At yoga rn, but ur on my mind_

It was such a girl thing to say, but Eli would be lying to himself if he didn't admit he liked the fact that he was on Moon's mind. So, he started texting back:

_Always thinking of you babe ;)_

But he stopped himself before hitting "send." Cool guys didn't tell their girls that sort of thing, did they? Hawk racked his brain, trying to remember any advice that Sensei had bestowed that might've been appropriate for this situation. Finally, he settled on sending:

_I know ;)_

Alpha move. Perfect. For as much as his Sensei had chewed his ass out the previous day over what had happened at the tournament, he would have approved of that just then.

Sensei certainly wouldn't have approved of how mopey Miguel was being though. The boy beside him let out a morose sigh, locking his fingers behind his head as the two of them walked in the mall. And Hawk knew that it wasn't the fact that Sensei had angrily reprimanded and embarrassed them both yesterday that was on Miguel's mind.

It was still on his mind, though. When Hawk woke up that morning, he thought it was going to be a great day. His parents had told him that, as a reward for all of his self-motivation in transforming himself into a more confident kid, they agreed that if he got his license that summer, they would give him his mother's car. But just when Hawk was flying high from that news, Sensei shot him back down to Earth, along with Miguel.

All for their actions at the All-Valley Tournament, for "cheating" against Robby. Neither he nor Miguel could understand why Sensei was so upset about that, all they had done was take his teachings and applied them. One would think their teacher would have praised his best fighters, but he dragged them through the dirt instead. Absolutely nothing sucked worse than being called a couple of pussies by their Sensei in front of the entire class; Hawk was still in such a shock from that reaction, he didn't know how yet to process it.

But Miguel wasn't thinking about that right now. Apparently whatever talk he and Sensei had in private had satisfied him for the time being, allowing him instead to go back wallowing in girl troubles. The guy was absolutely miserable, and when they passed by a toy store, he actually pointed to the window and whined, "Oh man, an octopus.…" Fortunately, Hawk had the context to know why the sight of a stuffed octopus would put his friend into such a sorry state; it had been the prize he won for Sam LaRusso on their date, before they had broken up.

"This is just getting sad to watch," commented Hawk, shaking his head. Thank goodness none of the other guys from the dojo were here to see the champion like this.

Miguel retorted, "You don't understand. I don't want to be like Drake. God, I just keep playing that night over and over in my head, wondering what went wrong."

"You got shit-faced drunk and hit her, that's what went wrong, we've established this multiple times," stated Hawk matter-of-factly. Not that he was overly concerned about the incident, and definitely not on Sam's behalf. After all, it wasn't like Miguel had hit her on purpose, he had been aiming for Robby. "Dude, just forget about her. You can do so much better than Sam, especially now."

"But I don't want someone better," argued Miguel, "I want Sam back." His friend snorted a little under his breath at Miguel's accidental shade thrown at his ex-girlfriend with the way he worded that declaration.

Hawk didn't understand why Miguel couldn't just move on from Sam dumping him. He was the All-Valley Champion. Girls loved champs. Miguel could get any babe he wanted now, with minimal effort. It almost offended him that Miguel didn't understand that, or worse, didn't care. What happened to striking first? For fuck's sake, _he'd_ been disqualified, but he could have had his own pick of chicks too, if Moon hadn't beaten them there first. Because he was Cobra Kai, and after the All-Valley, all chicks wanted to date a Cobra Kai. Hadn't Sensei's teachings pertaining to that ever stuck with Miguel?

"She's ghosting you," Hawk tried to drill into Miguel's head, pulling him by the arm off to the side to help stop his friend from absent-mindedly bumping into a kiosk. "It's over, man. Besides, why would you even want her back? Take off your rose-colored glasses. Remember how she refused to introduce you to her parents?" It was bad enough that Sam LaRusso had betrayed Aisha, standing by and doing nothing while Yasmine bullied her. But then Sam had betrayed Miguel, too, making excuse after excuse for why she wouldn't be in an open relationship with him. As far as Hawk was concerned, Sam was nothing but an enemy to all of Cobra Kai.

That had an effect on Miguel, but he shook his head and tried to excuse her behavior. "She tried to tell me, it was complicated, but I just wouldn't listen. It was more about her dad's beef with Sensei, nothing to do with me."

"That's a crock of shit," retorted Hawk. "She wasn't even the one who told you about it, Sensei did. Have some self-respect. Sam was just gonna keep hiding you from her parents. At least until she had the balls to come clean about going out with Robby Keene instead. She certainly had no problems introducing them to _him_, did she? Just think about it, Miguel. She's a rich, white girl. You're a Latino kid from Reseda. You don't think that had anything to do with it? You deserved better than her."

At the mention of Robby's name, Miguel's face contorted into one of vexation. For a kid who had popped out of nowhere, Robby Keene had become a major thorn in their sides, even more so Miguel's than Hawk's own. It turned out he had been trained by Mr. LaRusso the whole time, officially fighting under the Miyagi-Do Karate affiliation during the final match against Miguel. Combined with Miguel telling them how he'd seen Robby eating with Sam and her family at their house, the whole situation smelled fishy. Something more was going on.

Miguel's voice sounded defeated when he suggested, "Let's talk about something else."

"Gladly."

They crossed the food court, neither one feeling hungry, trying to avoid getting hit by people who were walking a little too fast towards the next big sale. Miguel let a smile slowly return to his face, nudging Hawk with his elbow. "And, just for the record, you're a little too pale to be calling anyone else out for being white."

Hawk returned his good-natured poke with one of his own. "My mom's family came from Georgia, does that count?" he asked. Then he clarified. "Uh, the country, not the state I mean."

"Mmmm, sorry, I'm gonna have to say that, at best, you're diet white." They both laughed at that. Hawk was glad to see Miguel start loosening back up again. He must have found some renewed energy, since as soon as they walked down a few a little farther, Miguel suddenly declared, "I got an idea. I say let's break a five each and go to Quarter World!"

Hawk gave him a look. The old Eli wouldn't have hesitated agreeing to such a fun plan, but Hawk balked at the idea of being spotted playing in a retro arcade, especially at a busy place like the mall. What if the new prospects wanting to join Cobra Kai saw them? "Jesus Christ, what are you, five?" he mocked with a snort.

Miguel returned his snarky comment with one of his own. "Uh, first of all, that place is mostly packed with thirty-somethings trying to relive their lost 90s childhoods, and you know that. Second, I'm not talking about pinball or _Pac Man_, I was thinking more along the lines of _Mortal Kombat_. Does that meet with The Hawk's approval?" His snark was only diminished some by his inability to hide his smile, showing he wasn't above poking a little fun at Hawk's occasional reference to himself in the third person.

Well, _Mortal Kombat_ was undoubtedly one of the most badass mainstream games to be found in an arcade. It straddled the razor thin line on whether or not it could be classified as nerd shit. But, what the hell, Hawk was willing to give Miguel this one. After all, he was the champion. "Aight," he said. "I could stand to kick your ass at some MK. It'll get your mind off Sam for a while at least."

The arcade was packed that evening. And Miguel was right, the place was full of mostly Millennials, piling quarters into machines in an effort to get their minds off their responsibilities and existential dread. He and Hawk broke their five-dollar-bills into quarters and found the machine they wanted: _Mortal Kombat II_. Thankfully, they only had to wait about five minutes for the two men already playing to finish up and hand it over.

"Awesome hair, bro!" noted one of them as he retrieved his Coke and stepped away.

Hawk jutted his chin out to acknowledge the compliment. Then he turned to Miguel and smirked. "That never gets old."

"Hey, you don't know, he could've been complimenting _my_ hair," said Miguel with a cheesy grin.

"Keep living in denial, man," said Hawk, plugging fifty cents into the arcade game, "or get on my level." Miguel just ribbed him in response and put in his own quarters. The character selection screen popped up, and the boys moved the joystick around to select their fighters. Miguel made his decision first and, seeing the choice, Hawk chuckled. "Pfft, of course you'd choose Sub-Zero."

"Uh, yeah, duh," said Miguel, "he's got the best moves. Everybody knows that."

"Maybe nerds know that," Hawk retorted, and then he made his own selection.

"Scorpion, huh?" Miguel asked sarcastically, poising himself by the buttons to get ready. "Very original." Their two characters appeared in a tournament background on either side of the screen, and the voice of Shao Kahn told them to "_Fight!_" The sounds of buttons being hit vigorously almost overpowered the sounds from the actual game. Biting his lip in determination, Miguel blocked Hawk as he sent Scorpion to attack Sub-Zero with a flurry of punches and kicks.

"Heh, you're a button-masher," he told Hawk, and, showing more skillful use of the buttons, he had Sub-Zero sweep Scorpion's leg. Then he went on the offense, ground sliding over to his enemy, whom he hit a dozen times with swift punches to the face, before finishing him off with an ice blast. "Sub-Zero killed Scorpion once, he's gonna do it again," Miguel declared, preparing for round two.

Hawk arched an eyebrow and looked at Miguel smugly. "Actually, that was the first Sub-Zero," he corrected. "Bi-Han killed Scorpion. This Sub-Zero is Kuai Liang, the first Sub-Zero's brother. Scorpion becomes his protector in the story-version of this." He acted fast to avoid falling into the same trap this time, putting some distance between Scorpion and Sub-Zero, so he could have his character throw his famous spear, to which the game yelled, "_Get over here!_," piercing his enemy and bringing him in to finish the job. Now the score was one-one.

"Y'know," said Miguel, "for someone who's too cool for MK, you sure know a lot about its lore." He said it amiably, almost like he was impressed, but Hawk's breath caught sharply behind his teeth. He had lost himself there for a minute, revealing his encyclopedic knowledge of pedantic nerd shit. He became so immediately self-conscious, he didn't pay attention to the game until he heard Shao Kahn shout, "_Finish him!_" Sub-Zero flash-froze Scorpion into an icicle and then promptly uppercut him into countless frozen, gory pieces. The screen declared his victory. "_Fatality!_"

"Awwww yeah, how's that grab you!" boasted Miguel with a little fist bump in the air.

Recovering from his faux pas, Hawk tried to let it roll off his shoulders. "You know I went easy on you because I wanted to let you savor your championship victory a little longer, right?"

Miguel wasn't going to fall for his bluff. "Yeah, sure, buddy. You gonna back that up with another round?" Hawk was still internally cringing for ever having allowed himself to let his geeky side break through the cracks in the wall of repression he'd hid it behind. He was above this sort of childish nonsense now. He and Miguel should have been out at a party or something, not spending their free time playing video games older than they were.

But it was making Miguel happy, that much was clear, and it was taking his mind off of Sam; it was serving as a good distraction. So Hawk put in another fifty cents and continued playing, being sure this time to keep his lips tight so he didn't reveal just how much embarrassing knowledge of this game he had tucked away in his mind.


	6. Bate

_Is this about his rap sheet? My parents read it online._

Hawk spent the entire scooter ride home trying to think of a convincing lie for why his clothes were soaked and caked with cement. Sensei Lawrence could have at least provided them a cover story himself when he expressly instructed them to not tell their parents that he'd had them inside an actual cement truck to learn a valuable karate lesson that day. It was almost like he was defying them to come up with plausible deniability. Eli was mostly just crossing his fingers, hoping his parents wouldn't be there when he got to his house.

No such luck. "Eli Moskowitz, what in the world have you been up to?" His mother was on him the second he stepped inside, her mouth agape at the site of her son in such a messy state. "What happened to your clothes? It's in your hair, too, what is this stuff?" She peeled off a bit of it from his sleeve. "Is this…Is this cement?" she asked, examining the substance closer, giving her husband a worried look from over her shoulder.

Unable to come up with a compelling lie, Hawk opted for a half-truth instead. "Yeah," he answered. "Sensei had us working on building muscle memory today, so we had to mix a bunch of wet cement by hand. He likes to think outside the box sometimes." He pulled away when his mom tried to clean some of it from his hair with a wet rag.

"Sounds like he's just getting free child labor," suggested his father from where he was sitting in his chair, looking at his iPad.

"How did you get it all over you, did Sensei Lawrence have you swimming in it?" asked Ruth Moskowitz, crossing her arms like this was some sort of interrogation.

The lies were coming easier now. "I tripped into a wheelbarrow when Miguel was mixing up a fresh batch," said Hawk with a little smirk at the corner of his mouth. "You know me, total klutz. Sensei did try to hose me down to get most of it off."

"So he took no safety precautions whatsoever?" his mother kept drilling.

"He gave us gloves," Hawk pointed out.

"And he doesn't at least let the parents know you guys will be out there, working with cement? No warning at all? What if one of you got hurt?" The tone of her voice stunned Hawk. Normally she just took whatever explanation he gave about certain questionable things he'd had to cover up about Cobra Kai at face value. God, if this was how she was reacting to the edited version of the story, she would've gone absolutely ballistic if Hawk told her he'd climbed inside that cement truck.

This was the first time his parents had ever given him any pushback, and it was blindsiding him completely. He shook his head a little in disbelief. "Why are you bustin' Sensei's balls all of a sudden?"

"Eli, language!" his mom warned with a sharp glare.

Simon Moskowitz took a more practical response and told his son, "We'll talk about this, but first: You. Shower. Now." He held up a hand when Hawk took a step forward, stopping him. "Ah. Shoes," he said, pointing to his ruined sneakers.

Ruth added, "Go ahead and give me your hoodie. I think your pants are beyond salvageable, but I might be able to save your hoodie." Hawk plopped off his shoes and was about to take off his hoodie and hand it over to his mother, but then he remembered. His tattoo. God, he'd almost just blown it, right there in the kitchen.

Lowering his arms back down, he came up with another excuse. "It's alright, we can just toss it," he suggested. "It's just a hoodie, I got a closet full of 'em." His mother pressed her lips together tightly at that, and Eli could tell from that look that she was suspicious about something. But she let it go, and stepped aside so he could shuffle onwards to his room.

He showered as quickly as he could, being sure to get all the cement off his skin and out of his hair; he even had to clean the inside of his ears, the stuff really had gotten everywhere. After changing into a clean set of clothes, he started toweling off his hair as he walked out of his room. In the hallway, he could hear his parents still talking.

"…and I think he's keeping something from us."

"Ruth, he's a teenager, of course he is. That's normal."

"Coming home covered in wet cement isn't normal, Simon. I don't like it."

"Would you rather he came home covered in paint, crying his eyes out? Remember when the kids at school did that to him?"

"Of course I remember, but this -"

"I'm concerned, too, but let's not push him away by overreacting…."

Wrapping the towel over his shoulders, Hawk stepped back inside the kitchen. Acting as though he only caught the tail-end of the conversation, he asked, "Overreacting to what?"

"It's about Sensei Lawrence," explained his mother, taking the iPad from her husband. "We received an email from a concerned parent this morning, worried about the influence he might have on all of you in his karate class, given his history."

Hawk curled his lip back in distaste. "Concerned parent?" he repeated. What fucking pansy-ass got their mom or dad to snitch on Sensei? Was this for real? Hawk's first thought went to Demetri, remembering how Sensei Lawrence tossed his friend to the floor, and how Demetri had never really gotten over that. "Who was it?" he asked.

"It doesn't matter who it was," replied his father dismissively. "Just a father with a daughter your age interested in karate, and he wanted to alert the parents with students at Cobra Kai that Sensei Lawerence had a run-in with the law, more than once."

Well, at least it wasn't Demetri who had snitched. Or any of the students who'd quit. Besides Aisha, there had never been any other girls in Cobra Kai. But Hawk almost did a double-take at hearing about Sensei having altercations with the cops. "Whoa, really?" he asked. His mom handed him the iPad and, sure enough, there was an entire rap sheet on his Sensei, there for the public record on the California Department of Justice website.

Sensei Lawrence looked completely _wasted_ in his mugshot. The rap sheet detailed his past squabbles with the law enforcement, including multiple misdemeanors involving intimidation, being drunk in public, and aggravated assault. There was even one instance of his getting into a fist fight at Applebee's that ended with him also getting slapped with a charge of verbal assault and flashing obscene gestures at the police.

Hawk couldn't help but crack a smile in respect to his Sensei's audacious behavior with the po-po. "_Whoa_," he repeated, this time with more admiration than surprise.

His mother didn't like that. "Eli, this is serious," she said, taking the iPad back. "It sounds like your Sensei is an angry, unstable man."

Scoffing at that before he could stop himself, Hawk countered, "Sensei ran into some hard times in the past. So what? All of this stuff was from before he opened the dojo." That didn't placate his mother's worries any.

Ruth shook her head, pressing her lips together hard again for a moment before asking pointedly, "Has he ever been drunk around you?"

"No, never!" Hawk quickly lied. Technically, Sensei was never actually drunk-drunk around them, or at least not face-in-the-gutter drunk. Sure, he had no qualms about cracking open a few beers in their presence, but what was the big deal with that? This whole situation was stupid.

"We were thinking," said his mother, setting the iPad on the table, "maybe you could find another dojo to practice karate."

Hawk couldn't believe what he'd just heard. Did he still have cement in his ears? Had he heard that right? "What? No. No, I can't go to a new dojo, are you serious?" He looked to his dad for backup, but his father had his eyes cast down, like he was aware of what was about to transpire and was steeling himself for it.

Meanwhile, his mother kept pressing the matter further. "Honey, maybe just look at a few of their websites. I hear there's a very nice one in Topanga. Your father and I would be willing to drive you out there until you get your license. You might find you like it even better."

"But all my friends are at Cobra Kai!" exclaimed Hawk. His hands were beginning to shake by his sides. He couldn't believe his mom was actually suggesting that he betray his Sensei and his dojo and all his friends. And he could tell she was serious about it. He realized at that moment that he was in danger. His parents were going to make him leave Cobra Kai. And for what? A stupid email, some dumb rap sheet?

Seeing the way her son's jaw clenched and his shoulders were trembling, Ruth tried softening her approach some more, pushing a smile on her face. "Demetri's not with Cobra Kai," she pointed out, "but you're still friends, right? I'm sure Miguel and the others will understand."

Hawk's chest started to tighten in panic and his breaths became shallower as the blood rushed to darken his face red. "You can't make me quit!" he snapped, his lip quivering at the sudden hurricane of emotion swelling inside him.

"Don't raise your voice at your mother like that," warned his father, snapping his head up to give him a stern frown.

But the fury was loose now, and behind that fury was raw desperation, the desperation not to regress. "I don't understand," Eli admitted to them, practically choking out his words, and he felt his eyes beginning to sting. He wanted to slap himself for being so weak. "I thought you guys were happy for me these last few months…." If they had been truly happy for him, why would they try to take away the things that had made his life better?

"We are happy for you, Eli," stressed his mother, taking a step towards him; Hawk responded by taking two steps back. "I'm just worried, I don't want to see you get hurt."

"No!" Hawk shouted, clenching his jaw tighter, doing his hardest to smother out any will to cry; better to be angry than a crybaby, he kept telling himself over and over, hoping it would stick. So, throwing consequences to the wind, he continued to scream at his mother. "No, you're not worried! You just don't care about me! You want to ruin my life, you _always_ make things worse for me! Just like when you called the school and had them make an announcement, all you did was make it worse! You don't care if I'm ever happy again, you just want me to be a loser forever!"

Rapidly losing the battle of controlling his tears, Eli threw his towel aside and ran down the hallway to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. Sitting on his bed, Hawk attempted to gulp down a few calming breaths, but he couldn't get his heart to stop pounding so rapidly in his chest. His cheeks were burning hot and he felt a painful lump in the back of his throat.

Hawk tried to hold on, tried not to completely lose it, because that's what the old Eli would have done. But what difference did it make now? He wasn't going to be Hawk anymore. No more being a badass, no more respect from others. They were going to make him Lip again. Stupid, nerdy, ugly, freaky Lip. All his friends were going to leave him. His girlfriend was going to dump him. People were going to start terrorizing him all over again. And who could blame any of them?

Gripping at his hair in his hands, Eli rolled over in his bed and buried his face in his pillow. Soon the pillowcase became damp as he gave into his grief and cried. He cried like he hadn't in months, it all came spilling out of him when he realized that under Hawk's tough, assertive, take-no-shit exterior, he was still Eli; weak, whimpering, cowardly, pussy Eli. It mortified him so much to come to that realization that at that moment, Eli wanted nothing more than to die right there.

There was a dip in his bed as someone sat down beside him, and Eli felt arms wrap around his thin frame and scoop him up. His mother brought his head to her shoulder and rocked him gently, as she had countless times in the past; and Eli was so ashamed to admit he found the movement comforting. He thought for sure that his mom would be furious with him for what he had said to her, but she was soft when she combed her fingers through his blue hair and reassured him, "I want nothing more than for you to be happy. I won't make you quit."

It was amazing how parents had the ability to both create and resolve a crisis. Hawk had never considered the real possibility that his parents had it in their power to make him leave Cobra Kai. Sure, he had understood in theory they could, but he'd never saw that as a legitimate threat. Until now. Everything he'd built up for himself could be snatched away in an instant, and he had no control over that. So what could he control?

He just needed to be more vigilant. Someone out there was trying to shit on Sensei's reputation, on all of Cobra Kai. Someone had it out for them. Hawk didn't know who, but he did know what he had to do now. He had to defend the honor of his dojo. When someone fucked with Cobra Kai, they were fucking with Hawk's whole identity. And if it was a war they wanted, he would give it to them.

Nobody was ever going to hurt him again.

But as Hawk's fury began to reassemble itself from the ashes that had consumed it, Eli allowed himself just a few more minutes of vulnerability, clinging to his mother, letting her comfort him for a while longer. He felt her other hand cup his right cheek, how she used her thumb to wipe away his drying tears there. Her voice was warm in his ear when she told him, "I love you more than anything in the world."

_You were Sensei's Sensei?_

_You better believe it, kid._

"Alright, ladies, get to scrubbing," said Johnny Lawrence, unceremoniously dumping two full buckets in front of Hawk and Miguel, causing water to splash on their bare feet. Tossing them each some rags and sponges, their Sensei headed back into his office, calling out by the door, "And don't forget to use the disinfectant. I think we got some mold growing on a few of those mats."

Hawk and Miguel gave each other a look of mutual exhaustion at the prospect of having to clean what looked like a literal mountain of mats and pads stacked in front of them, especially since they had just finished a brutal day of training. However, there was no getting around it, so Miguel just sighed and picked up a sponge. "Been a while since I had to do this," he grumbled, soaking the sponge in the water and grabbing hold of one of the tombstones. He grimaced at the sight of the visible sweat stains still on it. "Oh God, I totally forgot how gross this is."

"This is bullshit," declared Hawk under his breath, so Sensei Lawrence wouldn't hear him. "He's making us do bitch work." He took a rag, wet it in the bucket, and started on one side of a tumbling mat. Cracking a smirk at his partner, he quipped, "Think we can get the Asshole Twins to do the rest of the week for us?" He still refused to refer to the new Cobras, Mitch and Chris, by their actual names. The newbies needed to be initiated in, and that meant taking some shit from the seasoned Cobras, so they could weed out any quitters.

Hawk had to live up to his rep. The new Cobras had seen him kick ass at the All-Valley Tournament, making it all the way to the semi-finals. He had an image, and, more now than ever before, he couldn't risk ruining it by cutting the noobs any slack. They had to earn it first. It was especially important in their case, because they had never known him as Lip.

He'd survived the humiliation of being referred to as Lip by their Sensei, of having him savagely point out his deformity to the entire class in relentless mockery. If he had to suffer through a derogatory nickname before learning how to flip the script and earning a badass one in return, shouldn't the Asshole Twins? Otherwise, how would it be fair?

Miguel chuckled. "Yeah, if you want Sensei to also make us clean the toilets for the next million years." He tossed the second tombstone he'd finished washing aside. "I just don't get why he's so mad at us."

"Because he's being a hypocrite," answered Hawk, wrenching his arm up and down and across the tumble mat aggressively. That was exactly what this was, hypocrisy, and the fact that this unfair punishment was being dished out by the man Hawk most respected was just salt in the wound. Sensei could be harsh in his methods, often extremely so, but usually he always had a fair point to make. But this?

It especially irked Hawk, because he had specifically asked Sensei at the tournament if something was wrong, when he noticed how his teacher was looking at Robby before their match. He'd known something was off about the whole thing, his gut feeling had been correct. Sensei could have told him the truth then. But he didn't. He'd told Hawk to give Robby everything he had. And now he was punishing him for it.

"But why not tell us Robby was his son? I mean, I guess it's a private family matter, but why didn't he mention it at all at the tournament?" wondered Miguel again, starting on the tile mats, spraying the disinfectant before rubbing the rag in his hand over them. Miguel was really hung up on the whys of Sensei Lawrence hiding the fact that Robby Keene was his kid from his students. And Eli could understand why his friend would focus on that part, since he was closer to Sensei, being his actual neighbor and all; plus, Miguel didn't have a father around, Sensei was probably the closest thing he had to one.

Hawk, however, was more concerned about the injustice of their Sensei chewing them out for doing exactly what he had drilled into them, simply because they had shown no mercy to his son. Hawk knew if he'd attacked any of those other competitors, even from behind, Sensei Lawrence wouldn't have cared nearly as much, maybe not even at all. "Because what's he gonna say? He can't just tell us to go easy on his son, that's a pussy move. So he just calls _us_ pussies instead, and then makes us clean dirty mats when we call him out on it."

"Well, I wouldn't exactly say it was a call-out," argued Miguel, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. That was true, at least they had shown their Sensei the proper respect of confronting him with their knowledge of his relation to Robby in private. And look where that had gotten them. "It just doesn't make sense to me, he's trying to teach us the difference between no mercy and no honor, and maybe I'm just not getting it."

"Well, I'm definitely not getting it, either," said Hawk, furrowing his brows together in frustration. Showing no mercy was the modus operandi of Cobra Kai. People showed them no mercy. Life showed them no mercy. In return, they showed no mercy either. That was what they had been taught, and Hawk embraced that part of the mantra because it was true. Had Kyler ever shown him mercy? Had Brucks? Had any of Eli's countless bullies once showed him an ounce of mercy?

No. So why the fuck did he owe them any? He didn't. He didn't owe his enemies shit.

Hawk wrung his sponge out in the bucket before wiping down more of the tile mats, and grunted when he felt a pop in his shoulder. He rolled it back to help alleviate some of the soreness starting to congregate in the muscles there. Then, a ping from his pocket alerted him to an incoming text, and Hawk excitedly dropped his sponge and pulled out his phone, expecting a message from Moon.

His smile fell, though, when he read the message. "It's Demetri," he told Miguel, aggravation lined in his voice. "He's wondering what Sensei's policies are about accepting signed doctor's notes if a student wanted to avoid physical contact during spars."

Miguel appeared to find that amusing, rolling his eyes with a little chuckle and shake of his head. "Maybe he's just not cut out for karate."

"Or maybe he's just being a whiny bitch," Hawk retorted, stuffing his phone back into his shorts pocket. Hawk was losing his patience when it came to putting up with Demetri's constant stream of excuses for why he wouldn't just rejoin Cobra Kai. It was bad enough that his friend had no misgivings about using his proximity to the Cobras to try and reap the benefits of their hard-won reputations as All-Valley badasses to try and pick up chicks.

Although, even then, Demetri was just too much of a nerd to not totally embarrass himself trying, because he hadn't put in any of the actual work of flipping the script and shedding his geeky skin like Hawk had. And that was really beginning to grate on Hawk's nerves. Why couldn't Demetri just come back to Cobra Kai? Why couldn't he man up?

With a tired sigh, Miguel tossed his rag into the bucket so hard, some of the water splashed Hawk's face. "Hey, watch the hair," he said, "I gotta meet Moon after this, and I can't mess it up." He realized his mistake as soon as it left his mouth, as a mischievous grin slowly curled up Miguel's face.

"Oh, it would be a shame if _that_ were to happen," he joked, sticking his fingers into the water and flicking more drops at Hawk's forehead.

Chuckling under his breath, Hawk said, "Alright, if that's how you want it, challenge accepted." Boldly, he took the sponge currently in his hand and splatted it right in Miguel's face with a wet smack. The advantage of surprise now gone, he tried to dive away from his opponent.

Too late. Miguel lunged at him, wrapping his arms around his chest and tackling him to the ground. It was the shortest match in history, as Miguel grabbed him in a headlock, securing his quickly-won victory. "Say uncle," he told Hawk, laughing as his friend futilely pulled at his arm. "If you don't, I'm gonna have to dunk your head in that bucket and make your mohawk into a cowlick; and I gotta say, man, that would _not_ be a good look for you." If he really wanted to, Hawk could have gotten out of the hold, but that would have required messing up his hair, and a play fight wasn't worth that. And he knew Miguel would never actually mess with his mohawk.

But he still grinned and declared, "Defeat does not exist."

"That didn't sound like uncle to me," quipped Miguel. With a yell, he pulled Hawk backward, and they both tumbled on their backs on the mats, almost knocking over the buckets with their roughhousing. Their game ended, however, when they rolled back over and saw an intimidating figure suddenly looming over them. "S-Sensei Kreese," stammered Miguel, letting go of Hawk immediately. The two boys scrambled to their feet and gave him a quick bow.

Sensei Kreese stood tall and imposing in front of the students, one hand holding an unlit cigar; the smile on his face did nothing to soften the hardness of his countenance, which was as rigid as stone. "Practicing some drills after class?" he asked amusingly, cocking an eyebrow down at them.

"We were just messing around. Sorry, Sensei," Hawk responded. It still felt weird having John Kreese observing them in the dojo. He had seemingly come out of nowhere, and they barely knew anything about him other than his relation to Sensei Lawrence. He was a grizzled man. Hawk thought Sensei Kreese looked like he could've stepped right out of one of the 80s action flicks he'd spent so much time watching; he was even a war veteran, like so many of those action heroes tended to be. Despite being over seventy, Sensei Kreese had an air about him that would make anyone think twice about seeing him as just a simple old man. He looked like he could kick the shit out of a man a third his age, and he probably could.

After all, thought Hawk, John Kreese was Sensei Lawrence's Sensei. And if Sensei Lawrence was badass, that must have made Sensei Kreese the OG badass. The King Cobra, as it were.

"No need for apologies, boys will be boys," remarked their new co-teacher, taking a step closer towards them. Turning his glance at Miguel, he said, "But I hope you know that, if that had been a real fight, Hawk here could have easily slipped his head through your hold and taken control of the battle." Hawk couldn't help but swell with a little pride that Sensei Kreese had noticed that.

Miguel nodded. "Yes, Sensei. Really, we weren't being serious about it, but Sensei Lawrence has taught us how to slither out of chokeholds."

"Has he?" asked Sensei Kreese smoothly, his teeth showing through his smile. "That's good. I like that. Has he taught you how to put someone in a proper hold, though?" Hawk and Miguel exchanged a look, indicating that Sensei Lawrence had not really focused on teaching them how to be the initial aggressors, now that they thought about it; just what they would do if they were on the receiving end of such an attack, and that only required training with partners who put them in whatever headlocks they could on the spot.

"Ah," remarked Sensei Kreese to their silence. "Perhaps I'm confused, but how does Sensei Lawrence expect you to defend against a chokehold if you don't even know how to properly form one? You gotta learn how to crawl before you can walk." Handing Miguel his unlit cigar, he asked, "Do you mind if I give a little demonstration?" A demonstration from Sensei's Sensei? That sounded awesome to Hawk. He couldn't help but muse over just what sort of moves the King Cobra had.

In contrast, Miguel blinked in confusion, casting his eyes once towards the dojo office, before accepting the cigar and saying, "Um, yeah, of course, Sensei." He stepped out of the way, and Hawk's eyes followed Sensei Kreese while he moved around, until he was directly behind him. Suddenly, mild apprehension cooled his previous enthusiasm some, as he realized he was going to be the practice target. Being chosen as Sensei Lawrence's dummy could be scary enough, but Eli could just feel the menacing power Sensei Kreese owned in his every movement. Hawk tried swallowing his fear back down his throat.

"Relax," Sensei Kreese instructed him, voice cold behind Hawk's ear, before loosely wrapping his arm over and around his neck. "Remember, fear does not exist in this dojo." Hawk repeated the mantra in his head a couple times and tried to do as he was told. Turning his attention to Miguel, Sensei Kreese said, "Your mistake was trying to lock him in from the side; locking from behind will give you a much better advantage. Don't use the soft inside of your arm, either." Hawk felt him lean more forward, and his tattooed arm coiled around his neck farther like a python. "Try to line up the crook of your elbow with your enemy's throat, right at his Adam's apple. Then, simply pull your arm up sharply towards you, nice and tight. Like this."

Sensei Kreese's arm locked tight and yanked. Hawk's hands immediately flew up to pull at his arm in a moment of pure panic as he felt his windpipe get cut off. "Your enemy has about, let's say, thirty-seconds to get out of the hold before he begins to pass out," explained Sensei Kreese calmly. In the seconds that followed, Hawk knew true terror, the unadulterated fear of understanding that not only could Sensei Kreese choke him out before he could ever hope to pull himself together for a competent defense, but he had the power to snap his scrawny neck as easily as he could snap his fingers.

"Hawk, get out of the hold, just like Sensei showed us! C'mon, a cobra slithers!" pushed Miguel, rising anxiety laced clearly in his voice. Screw messing up his hair, Hawk needed to get out of the hold before he blacked out. But Hawk couldn't do it. Fear may not have existed in that dojo, but it certainly existed in every fiber of Eli's being at that moment. He forgot everything Sensei had taught them about this attack. All he could think about was the fact that he couldn't breathe. So Hawk slapped his hand pitifully against Sensei Kreese's arm, alerting him of his forfeit.

The whole demonstration lasted no longer than twenty-five seconds before Sensei Kreese released Hawk, but it was a lesson that would definitely stick with them. Especially Hawk. "Not bad for a first try, kid," said Sensei Kreese, patting Hawk on the shoulders, stepping back around. Instinctively rubbing a hand across his sore neck, Hawk looked up at the King Cobra as their instructor took his cigar back from Miguel and told the boys, "I'll tell Sensei Lawrence maybe the group should have more practice at this. You know how rusty tools can get if you don't keep them well sharpened."

Shifting on the balls of his feet uncomfortably, Miguel raised his eyebrows and asked, "Sensei, would that even be considered a legal move?"

With his free hand, Sensei Kreese retrieved a lighter from his jeans pocket and brought it up to his cigar. He took a few long puffs from the thing before answering Miguel's question. "Legal? Well, it may be considered a little extreme in a conventional dojo like this, or in a tournament setting perhaps. But you never know when you might find yourself having to fight for your life. Couldn't tell you the number of times it saved mine when fighting the Viet Cong."

"Yes, Sensei," said Miguel and Hawk in unison. Miguel still looked visibly uneasy about the whole thing. He himself had been put into chokeholds by Sensei Lawrence in the past, to learn how to escape from them, but something felt different about this; like, for a moment, he was genuinely worried that Sensei Kreese would actually let Hawk pass out. Sensei Lawrence would never have seriously tried to choke him, even in practice.

Hawk, however, despite having been the one in the chokehold, despite having experienced mind-numbing fear at not knowing if he'd be able to ever take another breath again, was in complete awe of Sensei Kreese's power and confidence. He had been right, Sensei Kreese was totally badass. He could've killed him in a second, just like _that_. That was real mastery.

Deep inside, Eli might've felt a healthy dose of fright about the ordeal; maybe the sixteen-year-old boy would've recognized this as a giant warning sign, a grown man putting his student into a real, no holds barred chokehold. But Hawk beat that sniveling nerd back down. As Eli, he may have coward away after this, but not as Hawk. He was in a dojo, he reminded himself. Sometimes people got hurt in dojos. Besides, he was fine. And it wasn't like Sensei Lawrence didn't have extreme and dangerous methods in his own teachings. There was nothing to worry about.

"Diaz! Hawk!" The boys and Sensei Kreese immediately followed the voice over to where Sensei Lawrence stood just outside the doorway to his office. Despite having called out their names, Johnny's gaze lingered on his Sensei for a long moment before returning to his students. "Have you finished cleaning the mats yet?"

A quick look at the floor revealed they'd only scrubbed about half of them. "Um, not yet, Sensei," admitted Miguel, a look of guilt crossing his features at disappointing their teacher.

"Well, hurry up then," ordered Sensei Lawrence, "unless you both want to be here all night doing push-ups on your knuckles."

"Yes, Sensei," they both responded with a bow before kneeling back down to grab their sponges, and they started scrubbing again. Glancing over his shoulder, Hawk caught a mutual, silent look exchanged between the Senseis. He couldn't place the expression on Sensei Lawrence's face, but he guessed it didn't matter, since the man simply walked back in his office. Sensei Kreese's smile returned, white teeth flashing as he puffed a smoke cloud in the air before walking across the mats and exiting outside to finish his cigar, causing the bells to ring as the door closed behind him.


	7. Molt

_Oh, look at this freak. What kind of girl would ever kiss this shit?_

After the extravaganza of the Valley Fest had ended, Moon drove them out to the local park near her house. She said she would like some alone time with him, which to Hawk sounded like the promise of a date. He was somewhat disappointed when her idea of a date meant the middle of a park, sitting on a blanket under a tree; although it was past visitor hours, that was a little rebellious at least. Hawk would have preferred to go get tattoos or something, since he was thinking of getting another one soon anyways, and maybe Moon could inspire him what to get.

But Moon was a hippy, after all, and loved nature, and she seemed to genuinely enjoy pointing out interesting things about the place to him as they sat there, even in the dark. It all came across as a bit girly, but Hawk decided he would humor her.

That was, until the conversation turned back to what had happened at the Valley Fest. "The most important thing is, we showed Miyagi-Do they can't mess with us and expect to get away with it," he bragged, recalling the awesome spectacle he and his teammates had performed. The other dojo deserved to be upstaged so thoroughly after the shade they'd thrown at Cobra Kai with that "snake in the grass" dig. Mess with the snake, you get bit, thought Hawk heatedly.

"I thought Sam's demonstration looked pretty innocent," Moon objected slightly, setting her purse down in front of her. "Mr. LaRusso really didn't seem like such a bad guy from the couple of times I met him. I don't think he really meant anything by it."

Her boyfriend's face tightened some at hearing her defend them. But Hawk bit his tongue to keep himself from going on a huge rant about the beef between Sensei Lawrence and Mr. LaRusso, and how Miyagi-Do had started the whole thing, and that, yes, Miyagi-Do had thrown the first punch with their cowardly dig in the YouTube ad. So, to keep from doing just that very thing, he shifted the topic.

"You should've seen Demetri's face when I did the aerial kick and smashed that board in his hands," boasted Hawk instead. "Bet he wishes he never left Cobra Kai. He would've been able to do cool shit like that too by now if he hadn't quit." There was a hint of both bitterness and dejection to how he said that.

Hawk was bitter that Demetri still hadn't come back, despite his friend suggesting he would. He wore the Cobra Kai logo, took the Cobra Kai cred, but he hadn't earned any of it. And Eli was dejected, because he knew Cobra Kai could help Demetri if he would just give it another chance and try harder. If Sensei's magic could work on him this well, then it would work on Demetri, too, if he would just let it.

And Eli would be lying to himself if he didn't admit he missed hanging around with Demetri. But all his friend wanted to do was the same old nerd shit that had made him and Eli into such bully-targets in the first place. And Hawk wasn't about to go back to that life, no matter how much Eli might have grown to miss some of those geeky interests. Let Demetri keep reading his comic books, let him keep watching shows like _Doctor Who_ and _Game of Thrones_, those things didn't have a role in Hawk's life anymore.

Moon pulled a bag of weed, a glass pipe, and a lighter out of her purse. "My mom told me I could finish off the rest of her stash tonight," she explained, taking the weed out of the baggy and packing it into the pipe. From the way she didn't hesitate at all, Eli assumed she must have done this plenty of times before. That blew his mind that Moon actually had her parent's blessing to smoke weed; if his parents had caught him in proximity to it, they probably would've grounded him until he was as old as Sensei Lawrence.

After filling it, she offered the full pipe and lighter to him. Unwilling to admit he didn't know what to do with them, Hawk countered back, "Ladies first." If he watched how she smoked it, then he could just copy what she did.

Moon smiled and then brought the pipe to her lips. Hawk paid attention to how she lit the lighter at the hole at the top, while inhaling through the mouthpiece. Taking a couple of puffs, she made it look simple enough. "You've smoked before, right?" asked Moon, handing the weed pipe over to him, exhaling a cloud of smoke as she did.

Accepting the pipe this time, Hawk cocked his eyebrow up at her like she was crazy for asking. "Pfft. Oh yeah, definitely, do it all the time. Me and some of the guys shared a big doobie last week, actually." He overcompensated, for the truth was he'd never smoked weed a day in his life. As Eli, he was too much of a dweeb to try the stuff and risk his parents' wrath, and as Hawk, he'd just never gotten around to it. But he couldn't tell his girlfriend that. What kind of lame, wangless dweeb would he look like then?

He flicked the lighter and inhaled slowly through the mouthpiece. The drag felt like it left a trail of fire from its path down his throat all the way into his lungs. He tried to just swallow the sharpness down, but that was the opposite of what he should have done, as that caused an instant coughing fit. Hawk quickly handed Moon the pipe back and tried to hold his coughs in, with limited success. "Ugh, wrong pipe," he joked, trying to play it off.

If Moon saw through his bluff, she didn't say anything to indicate so, simply taking another couple of hits from the pipe herself instead. "Yasmine and I used to park and smoke all the time," she told him, closing the lighter after another inhale. She scooted closer to Hawk on the blanket and leaned against his shoulder. Looking up at him with her warm smile, she said, "It's nice to be able to do it with someone again."

Hawk smirked and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, letting her lean in more comfortably. She gave him back the pipe, and the second hit went easier than the first. Hawk could actually feel some of the tension in his muscles begin to relax, so he took a third inhale before sending it back to Moon. "So," he said as she hit it again, "you said your mom gave you this shit? That's pretty wild."

"Yeah," answered Moon, exhaling the smoke. "She's let me smoke weed since I was, like, fourteen, around the time I was trying to lose weight."

Eli almost thought he hadn't heard her correctly as he smoked the pipe again; he could definitely feel some of that brain fog coming now. "Lose weight? Get outta here, _you_?" he asked with a dismissive chuckle. Nodding, Moon reached over for the pipe and lighter. Her eyes were getting a tad heavy-lidded and she stared intensely into nothing in front of them, growing introspective in a way that was familiar to those under the influence.

Why in the world would Moon have ever needed to worry about her weight? Eli had noticed her enough in school for a couple of years to know she could never have weighed more than 115lbs at her heaviest, tops.

"Sometimes after we, me and Yasmine I mean, after we smoked, we would go to this vegan-friendly place I know," said Moon, taking one of Hawk's hands into both her own, stroking her fingers across his palm. "We'd each get a big bowl of salad and veggies, and a smoothie or something, and then we'd go purge."

Hawk's face pinched at that. "Purge? Like, as in throwing up?"

"Mm-hmm," answered Moon with a lethargic nod.

Even with his faculties starting to slow, Eli's eyebrows flew up his forehead in shock. "Holy shit," he exclaimed softly, unsure how to process what his girlfriend was telling him. He never expected Moon would be one of those girls with an eating disorder. "You don't…still do it, do you?" he asked.

Moon blinked up at him, and a self-conscious blush filled her cheeks. "No, not anymore," she assured, webbing her fingers between his. "Sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up, but I was just thinking about that party at the canyon, when you asked me why I picked on Aisha. I think I actually do know why." She paused a moment to take another puff on the pipe again, blowing the smoke slowly through her lips, to collect her thoughts together. "I think we picked on her weight because we're so, I dunno, hung up on our own."

"I don't get it," admitted Hawk. He just couldn't wrap his head around why Moon, who was absolutely gorgeous, would be so mean to another girl just because she was anxious about her own appearance. Moon seemed too nice, was her self-image really that bad that it was that easy for her to fall into the trap of picking on a weaker target so she could feel better about herself?

Trying to explain herself better, Moon told him, "It's like I saw something in Aisha that I really hated about myself. Haven't you ever felt that way before about someone?"

"But you're so hot," retorted Hawk, avoiding her question. "You've always been hot."

Shaking her head, Moon patted his hand and looked up at him with a pitiful smile. "I guess you see me differently than I saw me." Hawk couldn't help but wonder who was the person responsible for making Moon develop such a negative self-image of herself.

"Hey," he said, bringing his hand up to cup her chin. "If any chump ever tells you you're ugly, just come and tell me. I'll break their nose for you, or bust their teeth in, make _them_ ugly instead."

That made Moon laugh a little uncomfortably under her breath and she shook her head again. "Thanks," she said, "but you don't have to hurt anyone for me, really."

Hawk's smug smirk returned. "If some asshole's hurting you, sure I do. You're my girl."

At that, Moon leaned her head back and kissed him faintly on the lips. It wasn't their first kiss, but it still took Eli by surprise whenever Moon would make the move and initiate it. He'd been so uneasy at first, wondering what she would think about kissing his cleft lip. But Hawk had smashed that apprehension to pieces. Fear did not exist.

"You have really sad eyes," Moon said out of the blue, "has anyone ever told you that?" When Hawk looked down at her, dumbfound, he saw the way she was staring deeply into them. She stared at him in such an odd way, like she was somehow looking through him, as though she could see through the Hawk exterior right to the true Eli underneath. And that unnerved Hawk.

Eli _wanted_ to be vulnerable for her, just as she had been for him, but Hawk held himself back, for dread that if she saw Eli's insecurities, she would mock him for them. And Hawk couldn't live with that. He had to be a man. Sensei Lawrence had taught him that babes never wanted dudes who were sissies; they wanted alphas. Eli was the sissy, Hawk was the alpha. It wasn't like Moon had ever approached Eli. She had chosen Hawk. Right?

He didn't know what to say to her comment, so he decided to laugh it off, like he was always doing of late when something made him uncomfortable and he couldn't just fight it off. She was just spouting that hippy, new-age stuff, nothing more. Chuckling, he told her, "You're so high right now."

"I am, aren't I?" she giggled back. Well, at least she realized it, and didn't press the philosophical examination further. Instead, she reached up a hand and brought it around the nape of his neck, drawing him in closer. "I think you are, too. How about a little less talking then?" she suggested, drawing Hawk in for another kiss. He didn't need to be asked twice.

He grunted in surprise as Moon pushed him on his shoulders down on his back, and kissed him harder. Not in the manner of the soft, closed-mouth kisses they were used to sharing, but a full-on open-mouthed kiss. Moon had decided to strike first, and strike hard while doing it, and Hawk couldn't have been more thrilled.

But as excited as Hawk was about the way the night was turning, Eli mentally recoiled as soon as he felt Moon's hands dip under his t-shirt and begin roaming. It hit him then, that this wasn't right. They were both too high for this kind of contact to be right. And if he was still sober enough to realize that, then he had to be the one to put an end to it. So he took hold of one of the hands she had wandering up his shirt and slipped it back out. He shifted to a sitting position, gently pushing her back up with him.

"What's wrong?" asked Moon, worriedly tucking her hair behind her ear. "Oh God, I'm not going too fast, am I?"

Hawk chuckled again. "Nothing's too fast for the Hawk, babe," he responded confidently, "but it's getting pretty late."

Moon checked her phone and another eruption of giggles escaped her. "Wow, you're right, it _is_ late. I always lose track of time when I get high."

"I'll walk you home," volunteered Eli, standing up and offering her his hand. "You said your house is close, right? You good to leave your car here?"

"Um, yeah," Moon answered, sticking the pipe and lighter back into her purse before collecting the blanket and accepting Eli's hand. "You sure I didn't make you uncomfortable?"

Wrapping his arm around his girlfriend's shoulders, Hawk scoffed and assured her, "Pfft, I let you touch my mohawk already, didn't I? As far as I'm concerned, we're already at second base."

_Have any of you heard of sleep enuresis?_

_Don't!_

_That is the medical term, of course. In the King's English, it's good old-fashioned bed-wetting! And Eli here is a pro._

The heat that night was relentless, so suffocating that even the air conditioning could barely make a dent in it. It woke Hawk up from a fretful sleep, from dreams of cramped locker rooms and faceless laughter, and he groaned when he cracked his eyes open to look at the alarm clock on his nightstand and saw it was only 2:37AM. Flipping his pillow to the cooler side, Hawk grumbled and tried rolling over in the bed to get more comfortable, when he felt how uncomfortably the legs of his shorts were sticking to his skin. God, he must have been sweating really bad, even while sleeping on top of the covers.

In his groggy mind state, he almost ignored it completely, until he rolled back to his original position. Then Hawk's eyes shot open. His sheets were soaked. And as soon as he was cognizant enough for that realization to settle in, that's when the unmistakable stench hit him. "Oh shit," he muttered softly to himself, snapping his eyes shut. "Please, don't let it be that…." Maybe it was just some terrible dream, he tried to convince himself. Yeah, right, like he'd ever be that lucky. It was never a dream.

Climbing off the bed, ripping the covers back, Hawk knew he didn't even need to turn on the lights to confirm what was obvious, but he did it anyway. Sure enough, his bladder had leaked in his sleep, soaking his bed lenin and clothes. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," he mumbled, burying his face in his hands in mortification. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly again and dug his fingers into his forehead so hard the nails almost broke the skin. "Fuck!" he shouted this time, slapping himself on the forehead in frustration. He shot an arm out to grab whatever object was in closest range - his television remote - and chucked it at the wall, breaking it to pieces.

Hawk's fury didn't end there. As he trudged across his room, he knocked over various articles, a box from his dresser, a cup full of pens from his desk, a stack of DVDs, anything that was within reach on his warpath to the bathroom. Once in there, he grabbed everything he could get his hands on and savagely tossed them against the shower wall. All of his hair products clunked off the wall and landed at the bottom of the tub: the containers of hair coloring, the styling putty, the freeze spray, the hair gel, all congregated in the bathtub as Hawk hurled them in rage.

Eli didn't deserve them, thought Hawk with contempt.

Looking at the tired reflection staring back at him in the mirror, with the dark bags under his eyes, Hawk scowled. "You're a fucking freak!" he spat at himself, throwing his hairbrush at Eli's nerdy face. Fortunately, it didn't crack the mirror, so Hawk just picked it back up and angrily launched it out the door and into his room, followed by his comb, deodorant, electric razor, anything he could grab in his impotent outrage, just so he could have something to try and break.

"Eli, are you okay?! Who's in there?!" called a voice from his bedroom door, and from his bathroom Hawk could see his dad enter, carrying a baseball bat in his hand. Simon Moskowitz dropped the makeshift weapon the second he could see it was his son who had been making all of the racket, not an intruder. "Eli? What in the world is going on?" he demanded, quickly darting into the bathroom, grabbing his son's wrists before he could throw the bottles of shampoo and conditioner too. "Stop it, Eli!"

Wound up as he was, Hawk almost reflexively lashed out, but his father's hold on his wrists was stronger, and he wouldn't let go until Eli finally dropped the bottles. His dad's face was almost as red and angry as his own, his eyes sweeping over the damage Hawk had done. Thankfully, most of it was superficial; the only real harm was a stained tub, since one of the containers cracked open, spilling blue dye all over the bottom.

Simon was almost at a loss for words. He reached out and grabbed Eli's shoulders, but Hawk pulled away from his touch and tried to push past him to saunter back into his room. His father grasped his arm instead and tried to pull him back, but this time Hawk's muscle memory did react, and he shot his hand out to smack his dad's arm away.

The resulting severe glare leveled at him by his parent brought Eli back to reality, as it sunk in what he had just done. "S-Sorry," he quickly apologized, shrinking into his shoulders a little. "I'm sorry."

His father led him by his upper arm back into his bedroom, where he then turned him around and put his hands on his son's slim shoulders, looking Eli in his eyes and asking, "Just tell me what happened." His tone suggested a man who was trying to keep his own temper in check. Eli wouldn't have blamed his dad if he started screaming, since being woke up at almost 3:00AM by your son losing his shit would have made any parent angry. But his dad remarkably kept his cool, considering the circumstances; Eli couldn't help but feel a bit guilty about it now that he had a moment to try and calm down some.

Casting his eyes down, Hawk's cheeks heated in shame as he was forced to admit, "I wet the bed again." He said it so softly, he almost hoped his father wouldn't hear him. But he did. And Hawk heard his dad let out a deep, low sigh. That was the sigh of a long-suffering man who had heard those words before, many times.

Standing up straight, Simon Moskowitz glanced over at the bed and saw the evidence. He then ran a hand down his exhausted face. "And you got angry because you're embarrassed?" he asked. Hawk gave a small nod in reply; what a stupid question, he thought, of course he was embarrassed, he was sixteen and still couldn't control his bladder when he slept. Then his father asked him, "You didn't drink before bed?"

"No!" snipped Hawk.

"Did you set your bathroom alarm? Why didn't you use the rubber sheets?" Hawk didn't think his cheeks could burn anymore than they already were. He hated these lines of questions. It made him feel like some dumb kid. At least a kid would have an excuse, though.

Hawk knitted his brows at the bridge of his nose in irritation. "It's been three months since the last time. I thought maybe I was finally done." He hadn't had an incident since he'd transformed himself into Hawk. He'd assumed, perhaps naively, that flipping the script might have finally cured him of this problem as well. But now he guessed it wasn't as simple as putting his geeky shit into boxes and getting a tattoo.

His father shook his head. "Eli, we've been through this, remember the last time you went a while between accidents and didn't take any precautions? Remember when Demetri's mother had to call us?"

Hawk was as red as a beetroot now. This was torture, pure and simple. So he snapped back, "What am I supposed to do? Just sleep with rubber sheets the rest of my life?!" What if things ever got super-serious between him and Moon, how in the world would he ever explain _that_ to her? How would he ever live down that humiliation?

Because as things currently stood, he didn't even feel safe asking Miguel to spend the night over, because what if he found out, too? The only good thing about not having had any other friends for so long was that at least Demetri was the only one who knew about his condition, and he wouldn't tell anybody. If any of his new friends ever learned that he was a chronic bed-wetter, Hawk didn't know what he would do.

Holy shit, and if his Sensei ever found out. If Eli thought being called Lip was the worst, his mind thought of at least a dozen equally degrading nicknames his Sensei could've picked from to embarrass him in front of the class if he had known about his sleep enuresis: Whizzer; Piddles; Tinkle-bell; the list was practically endless.

"I'm not having this argument this late at night," remarked his father. "Just put on some clean clothes, then collect the old ones and your sheets and comforter so I can at least put them in the washer. I'll go get you the spares."

He did as he was told, and when his dad came back with the spare bedding, Hawk accepted them grudgingly, ears bright pink at seeing the set of rubber sheets included with them. While his father took the soiled linens across the hall to the laundry room, Hawk made his bed in incensed silence. If the famed Big Earthquake had struck California right then, Hawk would've welcomed it with open arms and let it swallow him into the ground.

After he finished tucking the fitted rubber sheets around the corners of the mattress, he laid the loose cotton set on top. By then, his father came back into his room and helped him finish laying the blanket out, spreading it across the bed. Watching as Hawk readjusted his pillows, Simon asked his son, "Have you been under any unusual stress lately? That could've had something to do with it."

"Why would I be stressed?" asked Hawk dismissively. "School's out, no homework, nothing to worry about."

That answer wasn't good enough. "What about your karate classes?" asked his dad.

Sensing an underlying motive behind the question, Hawk got defensive and snapped again at him. "No, just get off my back about it, alright?!"

"Hey!" his father retorted sharply, crossing his arms with parental authority. "I've had about enough of this attitude from you lately. You're yelling at your mother and now snapping at me, this isn't like you. I've tried to be understanding, but if you don't drop it soon, be prepared to say goodbye to your electronics for a month. Understand?"

Hawk curled in his bottom lip to try and curb anymore snipping on his part. He knew better than to yell at them, yet lately he had been so tense that it just all came out. He couldn't explain why. He couldn't form the words to articulate why he was so angry. It wasn't just about the bed-wetting. His fury was much more aimless than that, increasingly so. More and more little things were pissing him off. He was angry at Mitch and Chris for sucking up to him. He was angry at Demetri for getting hit by Sensei Kreese and whining to him about it. It was like that fire of irritability was growing in his belly all the time now, and he didn't know how to cool it off anymore.

Eli wanted to find some way for his tongue to form the words necessary to tell his father all of this. If he could, perhaps his father could help explain why he was feeling so mad. But maybe Sensei Lawrence had been right, maybe his tongue was messed up too, just like his lip, because all Hawk could say was, "Yeah. Sorry, Dad," before climbing back into bed. He pulled the covers up this time.

His father flicked the lights off, telling him, "Try and get some sleep. We'll talk about this more in the morning." He then left, shutting the door gently behind him.

But Hawk couldn't sleep. His mind was still too wound up. Eli couldn't get over the lingering feeling of shame from this incident, and it was worse knowing there was no way to predict when it would happen again. He certainly didn't feel like a badass, how could he possibly after that? After all, it didn't matter how badass someone was, there was no way to own bed-wetting.

Hawk narrowed his eyes and took a deep, furious breath. No. That was defeat talking. And defeat did not exist.

Tossing the covers aside, Hawk rose out of bed and made his way back into his bathroom. Switching on the lights, he reached into the tub and picked up his hair products, setting them one-by-one on the sink where they had once been earlier that night. His temper had cost him the rest of his electric blue dye. That was okay, though. There was another, unbroken container of Manic Panic, lying at the bottom of the bathtub. Hawk retrieved it, rolling it over to check the label: wildfire red.

Staring up at his reflection in the mirror, Hawk raised a hand and raked his fingers through his undercut. And he visualized it.

It was time to flip the script once more.

Nobody was ever going to hurt him again.


	8. Raptor

_Take it down, or we take you down._

_….You'd actually hurt me?_

"Hey, Hawk, didn't have a chance to tell you in class earlier, but I'm digging those liberty spikes." Hawk looked up to see Tory pull a seat to join him, Moon, and Aisha at their table in the restaurant. Practice had been particularly intense that day, with both Sensei Lawrence and Sensei Kreese showing them sparing moves, including how to get out of a chokehold; Hawk couldn't help but notice that they still weren't being taught how to use a real one during their spars, and wondered if Sensei Lawrence had put a stop to that.

But now wasn't the time to think about any of those things. He and his friends had food and they had appetites, and the new girl was complimenting his hair. "Thanks," he said with a smug smirk. "Pretty bitchin', huh?" Instead of his usual fanning mohawk style, Hawk opted this time for bold liberty spikes lined straight down the middle of his head. That, coupled with the decision to dye his hair wildfire red, made him stand out in virtually any crowd, even more so than he already had been. Instead of just simply being awesome to behold, his mohawk now had the effect of making him look intimidating as well.

Sure, it meant he'd have to get up an hour earlier each day, at the very least, in order to put the work into making his hair look that good. But it was worth it.

The change also had the benefit of his hair sharing colors with the Cobra Kai logo. So, combined with his dressing predominantly now in black and red clothes, with a splash of yellow and white, Hawk was always displaying his dojo's colors now. He could almost be described as a walking billboard for how badass anyone could be if they would join Cobra Kai.

And, of course, he also had to go and get his tattoo touched up, as well. He couldn't have the red-tailed hawk on his back sporting an outdated look, he and his hawk had to share the same haircut, so he had Rico go over the blue flesh with fresh red ink. It looked even more impressive than before. Red didn't clash with brown and beige nearly as much as blue did.

"So, I gotta ask," said Tory, folding her arms on the table and looking Hawk dead in the face, "how'd you get that rad scar? Wait, let me guess!" Her eyes scanned him up and down, and a little cocksure smile curled on the corner of her mouth. "Knife-fight in an alleyway, right?"

Hawk had been prepared to get defensive over her question, as he did when anyone pointed it out, but her follow-up was so audacious he found himself giving a hearty chuckle instead. "Heh, cleft lip surgery, actually," he corrected, crossing his arms, too. "But I like your version better. I might swipe it." It certainly sounded a lot more colorful, and would make a more formidable backstory for himself, rather than having just been born with a freaky lip.

"It really suits your image, brings the whole look together," Tory told him with a nod. "Very Tony-Montana-meets-Johnny-Napalm." Hawk hadn't ever really thought of it that way before. He'd originally gotten his mohawk just so people - particularly his Sensei - would focus on it instead of the scar on his lip. He hadn't realized how it might have actually contributed to his overall intimidating appearance, or that people would come to see the scar as potentially threatening in any way. Now, he really liked that idea.

Tory then suddenly stood up from her chair, telling them, "Alright, I've been holding it in, and I really gotta run to the bathroom. Get the waitress to bring me an ice-cream brownie, okay?"

As soon as the girl walked away, Hawk turned to Moon and Aisha and smiled big, saying, "I like her." Tory carried herself like an alpha, such as when she proved herself to be bold enough to take on the champion Miguel in a one-on-one battle, which was why she'd earned herself a spot at their table. Meanwhile, Hawk had relegated Chris and Mitch off to the side, at another table by themselves, where they ordered their own appetizers between the two of them.

"Uh-uh, don't even think about it," warned Aisha from where she sat beside him, "I saw her first."

"Hot," quipped Hawk, with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows, earning him a French fry to the face from Aisha.

"Don't be a pig," she told him, rolling her eyes hard. He just picked up the fry with a laugh and ate it.

As soon as Moon finished ordering Tory's dessert with the waitress, Aisha told her, "Seriously, Moon, you have no idea how great it is to finally have another girl on the team. I was worried we'd never get anymore to join. No offense to the guys, but it was getting to be too much like a boys' club, if you know what I mean."

"Total sausage-fest, she's saying," Hawk summed up with a grin, taking another fry from the basket. Seeing the looks the girls were giving him, he shrugged. "What? I agree with you, we should definitely have more chicks on the team."

"Yeah, Moon, why don't you join?" asked Tory, sliding back into her seat after catching the end of their conversation. "I think all girls should take at least one kind of self-defense, honestly. Y'know, to keep the creeps in line. Guy sends you an unsolicited dick pic, you track him down and make sure it's the last one he ever sends."

Moon smiled but shook her head at the suggestion. "No, I'm totally more of a lover than a fighter. Not that there's anything wrong with you guys fighting, it all looks pretty cool actually. I just think sometimes it's better to reach out and make friends instead. I mean, that's how it worked with us. I was really thinking maybe that's how things might end up between Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do."

Hawk, Aisha, and Tory all shared a look. "That's cute, really," said Tory, with more than just a hint of patronizing flavor to the inflection of her voice. "But if the rest of Miyagi-Do is anything like Sam, then it sounds like they're pretty dead-set on believing the worst about us. Can't really make friends with people like that."

"Yeah, Sam really didn't make a good first impression at the beach," said Aisha, taking a sip from her soda. "First, there was the whole thing about her dad and his 'snake in the grass' comment, she tried to act like that wasn't intentional shade. Then she accused Tory of stealing her mom's wallet. I think Miyagi-Do has it out for Sensei and the whole dojo at this point. I mean, Sam seemed pretty bitter about us upstaging them at Valley Fest. I really don't think we can trust them not to try something else. Her dad already tried to siphon off students with promises of free karate lessons. Who knows what he'll try next?"

Giving a sharp nod, Hawk emphasized, "We gotta stay vigilant."

"Oh, hey, speaking of Sam's dad," said Tory, "did you guys ever see this?" She held up her phone for them to look closer at a photo she had zoomed in. It was a billboard of Mr. LaRusso, advertising his auto business, and someone had spray painted a giant dick in his mouth with bright red paint. All the students at the table laughed.

"I heard about that, back in school, but I never actually got to see it myself," chuckled Hawk. "Send that pic to me, here's my number." He gave Tory his cell number and grinned when she texted him the picture, saving and storing it away for later. Never knew when that might come in handy. After all, Sensei Lawrence's wasted mugshot was out there in the public for all to see, maybe Mr. LaRusso needed to be humbled a bit more often, too.

He looked over his shoulder and called out, "Yo, Miguel, did you see this pic of your ex's dad, man? It's hilarious!" Miguel didn't even look up from his seat at the solo table, where he had his face buried in his laptop screen. If he heard Hawk at all, he didn't give any indication of it. Hawk let out a scoff in annoyance, but let it go at that. Whatever Miguel was working on, he'd been at it since they got there, and he was giving it his full, undivided attention. Hawk hoped it was for something actually important, not just another case of Miguel moping around, desperately pining for his ex-girlfriend some more.

The group continued to eat and chat for a while. Once he'd gotten about three sodas in him, Hawk announced that it was his turn to go to the bathroom. After he finished his business and washed his hands, he turned to leave the men's restroom, and another teenager walked in at the same time, bumping into his shoulder. When the other guy didn't apologize, Hawk narrowed his eyes. Without a second thought, he grabbed the guy's shoulder and wrenched him back. "Watch where you're stepping, shitwipe!" he spat, his lip curled back in disgust.

Hawk watched the way the other boy's eyes drifted up to his hair, then down to his lip, and he saw the intimidation spread over his face, clear as day. "S-Sorry, man," the other guy stammered, shuffling his way towards the stalls, head down, avoiding his avian glare. Hawk smirked and left the bathroom. That would teach that guy to treat him with disrespect.

That wasn't enough to placate his ego, however. Walking back to the group, he overheard Moon and Aisha talking about Yasmine for some reason, and Tory was trying to grab Miguel's attention. So, to display his confidence some more, Hawk trudged over to where Chris and Mitch were sitting. Looking down at the remainder of their food, Hawk snatched the only extra fare left, to show them who was boss. They needed to pay him his dues.

"That was my last mozzarella stick," objected Chris, slumping his broad shoulders in dejection; after all, he had paid for those himself.

Hawk just scoffed, mouth still full of fried cheese. "Gotta pay the vig, blood," he told him, annoyed that any of the Cobra noobs would give him backtalk. Yet, the fact that Mitch had nothing to say about Hawk stealing their food caught his interest. The other boy was staring at his phone, irately. "What's the matter with you?" inquired Hawk.

Mitch handed him his phone, saying, "Something you should see."

Taking the device in his hand, Hawk's eyes scanned the app page Mitch had been reading. It was a Yelp review, criticizing the Cobra Kai dojo. Some asshole had left it one-star, and a whole block of text bitching about his experience there:

_Where to begin? This establishment doesn't warrant the name. How they are still in business, I have no idea. The dojo employs a very unprofessional sensei, like they just picked someone up off the street! He does not take into account the safety and personal boundaries of the students at all! Now, beyond that, the facility is in dire need of a major facelift. I almost expected to see cockroaches running past the entrance. It may look badass on the outside, but this dojo leaves so much to be desired._

Hawk gripped Mitch's phone tight around his fingers as he scrolled down; his free hand clenched into a fist by his side so tensely his knuckles blanched. "'Very unprofessional sensei'?" he repeated as he read. "'Does not take into account safety or personal boundaries'? 'Facility in need of a major facelift'? Who the hell does this guy think he is?" Using his thumb to scroll back, Hawk's face went stone cold when he saw the photo of the author, DMan2002.

Demetri.

Even as his brows knitted angrily to the bridge of his nose, a tiny spark of fear ignited in the back of Hawk's brain, and his fury magnified what should have been a minor infraction into a full-blown crisis instantly. What if his parents saw the review, he could only think? They were already apprehensive after reading Sensei's rap sheet, this would only add gasoline to the fire if they saw what Demetri had to say about his teacher and dojo. Didn't Demetri ever think once about the consequences of posting his stupid opinions online?

It felt personal, the whole thing did, even if rationally Eli must've known Demetri did not intend it to be. But Hawk was convinced Demetri knew exactly what Cobra Kai meant to him, he knew how much Hawk depended on his dojo. He'd basically told him so that night at the canyon; it was a way of life. The knife may not have been plunged into his back completely, but Brutus sure did nick him in the neck with it with his harsh review, as Hawk felt the threat as surely as cool steel against his throat.

All of this bullshit from Demetri, and for what? Because Sensei Kreese had given him a bloody nose? So he'd needed a couple stitches? So what? Sensei Kreese had almost choked him out, but Hawk wasn't complaining. That's what happened in karate dojos, sometimes things got a little rough. You just had to be man enough to take it.

Besides, thought Hawk coldly, Demetri probably deserved it; he never could just learn to shut his big mouth, he'd probably set Sensei Kreese off somehow.

Standing there in the restaurant, glaring at the phone screen, Hawk allowed the fury to swallow him again, from head to toe. Hot rage coursed through his blood. His nostrils flared and his top lip curled in loathing.

How could Demetri backstab him like this? Hawk pushed to the back of his mind all of the times of recent that he'd been short and snippy and unsympathetic to Demetri's criticisms, because in his view, it did not measure up to this sort of disloyalty. He was revolted. It made him question whether or not Demetri had ever really been his friend since he joined Cobra Kai. Demetri had never liked his transformation, he had always been critical of Hawk. He barely even ever called him by that name, despite how many times he'd been told to.

Eli tried to keep the good memories he had of Demetri at the forefront on his mind, tried to remember that he really was his friend, that surely this was just some stupid misunderstanding, but then Hawk mentally stomped on them and ground them beneath his shoe. So quickly did his love for Demetri turn to hate.

Demetri, the friend who was always there to help him feel better after getting bullied, remembered Eli.

Demetri, the complete pussy who stood by and did nothing while he was being bullied, corrected Hawk.

Hate was the only word to properly describe it, what he was feeling then, because hate was the only word that could make someone look at a friend and think, "Would hurting them make me feel better about myself?" Hawk _hated_ Demetri's constant whining, he _hated_ his unwillingness to completely change himself for the better like Eli had done, and he_ hated_ the fact that he wasn't ashamed of his nerdy interests.

All of that, though, Hawk could have continued to tolerate. But he would not overlook betrayal.

This was war. Demetri had crossed the line. And now he had to pay for it.

But Eli still wondered, that little part of Eli that was scared to be completely consumed by the fury of the Hawk. Did he really have it in him to turn his rage on his best friend? He knew it might help him feel better, to give his anger a legitimate target, rather than continue to let it aimlessly simmer inside him. But he at least owed Demetri a chance to take it back. Give him an opportunity to take the offending one-star review down.

And if he didn't take it down? Hawk would do what had to be done. He had to protect his dojo, and his Senseis' reputations, because without Cobra Kai, there was no Hawk. And without Hawk, Eli was nobody.

Hawk had to deal with this. Right now. That begged the question, however, of where to find Demetri? But then Eli remembered. Wait. It was Wednesday. The new issue of _Dungeon Lord_ would be out. There was no way a nerd like Demetri would miss picking up a copy on the day of release at the comic book store, Hawk could be sure of that. So he had a safe bet where his enemy would be.

"Hey, Ass-face and Douchebag," called Hawk, glaring down at Mitch and Chris. "Grab your shit, we're going to the mall." Fury fueled his entire system, overriding any other emotions, beating down guilt, pity, and most of all, love; there was no more place for them. All of his attention was mustered to take down this potential threat.

Nobody was ever going to hurt him again.

_You think I'm afraid of you? I know who you really are, Eli!_

Robby Keene's kick to his head must have knocked him out cold for a few minutes, because the last thing Hawk remembered was being in the middle of a fight with the Miyagi-Do students at the center of the food court, and then the next thing he knew someone was shoving a smelling salt up his nose, waking him up to the sight of two mall cops standing over him; all of the others, both Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai, must have quickly ran off as soon as the fight concluded, leaving Hawk alone to deal with the consequences of the brawl that he had started. The security guards dragged him to their office, sat him down in a chair, and started drilling him about what had just transpired.

They didn't find it particularly amusing when they asked for his name and he'd only answered defiantly with, "Hawk." One of the security guards yanked him up by his arm and shoved his hands into his pants' pocket, pulling out his wallet. It was a more efficient way to get all the information he needed than to try asking Hawk again, that was for sure. That particular mall cop must have dealt with plenty of rebellious teenagers before. "Hey, that's an illegal search," Hawk argued.

"Just sit back down, you little punk," said the guard, retrieving Eli's driver's license before walking over to an adjoining office to make a phone call.

"Fake-ass rent-a-cops," muttered Hawk under his breath, crossing his arms and sitting back down with a scowl. The other mall cop demanded to know the names of the other kids involved in the fight. She told him there was no point in denying what had happened, there were dozens of witnesses who had seen it go down. Eventually, they would find out, she warned. And at least one video had already been uploaded onto YouTube. If that was the case, then why even bother asking him? They could've just scoured the YouTube comments and waited to see when someone would inevitably make a callout about who was in it. But that required competence, and mall cops weren't hired based on brainpower.

Hawk just couldn't believe Cobra Kai had lost. It was five against two-and-a-half, and they still got thoroughly owned by Robby Keene and Sam LaRusso. It crushed Hawk's fantasy he'd had since the All-Valley Tournament that, had he not been disqualified, he was sure he would've beat Robby in their one-on-one match. Now, though? How could he keep thinking that? Robby had defeated him, delivered the finishing blow, he couldn't get around that fact. He had a bruise on the head to prove it.

His face heated up at the thought of people on the Internet seeing him get his ass beat by Robby and Sam, especially the latter. It didn't matter how skilled Sam was, it didn't matter that she'd been practicing karate long before any of them, or that Hawk had been hesitant to have to hit a girl at all, if people watched that video online, all they were gonna say was that Eli was a pussy for letting a girl beat him. He was going to look ridiculous. People were undoubtedly going to make fun of him in the comments, and that got his blood boiling. This had not gone at all how he'd planned it. What if either Sensei Lawrence or Kreese could see him now?

It took every ounce of his willpower to keep from just pulling his phone out right there and turning on YouTube to find the video. Eli kept repeating the age-old Internet proverb in his mind: don't read the comments, don't read the comments. They were just going to upset him. And Hawk had just lost one battle over someone posting a negative remark, did he really have the energy right now to go after dozens more?

The guard kept asking for the names of his teammates, but Hawk kept his mouth shut. He may not have treated any of the noobs, except Tory, with any sort of respect, but they were still Cobra Kai, and he wasn't going to betray them. So all he said in response to her question was, "I ain't no snitch." He dared the mall cops to do their worst.

So they called his mom.

"Hi, yes, I'm Ruth Moskowitz. I'm here to pick up my son Eli."

The first expression on his mother's face upon seeing him was that maternal concern. She simply stood there for a few long seconds, eyes staring in disbelief at him, before she reached out a hand to softly touch his left cheekbone. Hawk recoiled, bringing his own hand up to feel there, and he immediately winced. The bruise forming from the result of Robby's kick must've been big, and it was already sore. No matter, though, thought Hawk. Pain did not exist.

He pushed past his mother, waiting outside the office while she finished things up with the security guards.

It gave his mind extra time to stew. He clenched his teeth at remembering how Demetri had revealed that not only did he have no regret for posting the one-star Yelp review, but he'd actually joined Miyagi-Do. Miyagi-Do! His treachery knew no end. Screw Robby Keene, _that_ was the major blow that hurt Hawk the most. And he had swore to himself that nobody would ever hurt him again.

Next time he saw him, Hawk would make Demetri pay for that.

"Let's go. Now," his mother ordered him, exiting the mall cop security office. He could tell by the look on her face how embarrassed she must have been about this whole thing. She hadn't so much as ever been called to the principal's office on account of his behavior before, and now she got a ring from a security guard alerting her to her son's role in a mall fight. Talk about whiplash.

All things considered, Eli had gotten off lucky. He, or rather his parents, had to pay $500 in damages to the owner of a sunglasses kiosk, and he was permanently banned from the comic book store. But no one was going to press any charges to the real cops. Hawk felt a little too proud now that he had an official record. Granted, it was a mall record, nothing compared to Sensei Lawrence's rap sheet, but hey, it was something. Against his common sense, it made him feel badass.

Once they were in the parking lot, Hawk expected to see his mom's new car there, but it wasn't anywhere to be found. She instead held out her hand to him. "Give me the keys to the Sentra," she said. Hawk knew then that meant that his dad had dropped her off, and that she was going to be driving them home. Which meant his mom was the one who would be dishing out the punishment. Was she going to revoke his driving privileges? He'd busted his ass to get his license just so he could drive his own car that summer, so he could finally stop being dependent on his parents and his razor scooter, and he was already in danger of it being taken away?

Eli did as he was told, though, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the keys, giving them to his mom.

They sat in silence, from the moment they got into the car until they were driving down the highway. No one said a word. His mother had turned off the radio. The only noise came from the blast of the air-conditioner, and the sounds of the traffic around them. It was so sickeningly quiet, Hawk could hear his own heart beating in anticipation of the inevitable guillotine coming down. It made his mouth dryer than a sandbox.

Unable to take the suffocating silence anymore, Eli broke it. "Am I grounded?" he asked.

His mom gave him an incredulous look. "Is that all you have to say?" she asked back, gripping the steering wheel tighter. "'Am I grounded?'" Well, it was the most pressing concern on Hawk's mind at that moment. Apparently not for his mother, though. "Did you start this fight?" she asked him point blank. Hawk cast his eyes to the passenger window, but kept his tongue still, not answering. His mother kept pressing him. "I want an answer, and don't lie to me, did you start this fight?"

"No," Hawk lied, justifying it to himself that it was really Demetri who had started it, by posting the one-star Yelp review against Cobra Kai. Eli should've known that what he did was wrong if he had to do so much mental gymnastics in order to justify it. But Hawk just narrowed his eyes. Whatever. What was done was done, he couldn't undo it. _Start shit, get hit_, he thought to himself bitterly.

He avoided the firm stare he knew his mother was giving him. He could feel it digging into the back of his shoulder-blade, it was so intense. Things got silent for a few more minutes, and Hawk expected the ax to come down hard. But then his mother spoke up again. "Alright," she said, turning her attention back to her driving. "If that's the truth, then you're not grounded."

That caught Hawk by surprise. His eyebrows rose a notch and he gawked over his shoulder at her. She'd actually believed him? Just how much information did those mall cops really possess? Were the eyewitness accounts discrepant? "Really?" he asked, unbelieving. He was not about to be destroyed? He was still allowed to keep his car? He was getting off virtually scot-free?

His mother didn't look at him, but instead kept her eyes focused hard on the road ahead, switching lanes to avoid traffic. "I trust you," she told him, "and I would never punish you for defending yourself if someone was picking on you. That's what these karate lessons were always for, right? Self-defense?" Their car came to a stop at a traffic light. Ruth Moskowitz then reached her hand over and cupped her son's cheek tenderly. "But please, come to me next time if something is wrong," she pleaded. "I don't want to receive another call telling me you've been hurt; or that you've hurt someone else."

Eli hunched over, meekly sinking into his seat. It felt like his mom had just dropped a cold iron in his gut, and he couldn't help but feel guilty. He didn't deserve her trust. He deserved to lose his driving rights, he deserved much worse than that even. He'd been doing nothing but lying to his parents for months, and he was still lying even now. Lies upon lies upon lies, they had been piling on, and showed no signs of stopping.

Eli wanted to break down and tell her everything right there, to bare his soul in a way he didn't even do on Yom Kippur: he wanted to confess about getting a fake ID; he wanted to take off his shirt in the car and show her his tattoos; he wanted to admit he got disqualified at the All-Valley Tournament for fighting dirty; he longed to tell her the truth about the cover stories he'd had to come up with for the more outrageous lessons at Cobra Kai, like when Sensei Lawrence released junkyard dogs on them, or had them climb inside a cement truck to prove a point; Eli wanted to acknowledge that he was the one at fault for the mall fight, that he'd attacked his best friend because Demetri reminded him of so many things he still hated about himself but was too ashamed to admit.

But Hawk resisted.

It was a nice sentiment, thought Hawk, but he knew what the consequences would be if he unloaded all of his overwhelming feelings onto his mom. She would pull him from Cobra Kai in a second, in her misguided attempt to fix the problem. And he couldn't live without Cobra Kai. His mother couldn't help him, no matter how much Eli wished she could. He was in too deep. She would just make things worse. Besides, Hawk resented the idea of having her baby him anymore; he was no bitch-ass momma's boy.

So all he muttered in reply was, "Yeah, sure," and returned his attention out the window. He didn't catch the look of disappointment in his mother's eyes.

"If you like, I could speak to the owner of the comic book store," his mother offered, making the exit off the highway that would lead them to their home. "I could explain the circumstances, and see if maybe he'll let you back in the store."

"It doesn't matter," dismissed Hawk, crossing his arms. Pursing his lips in distaste, he clarified, "It's not like I even go there anymore."

"You used to, all the time," his mother pointed out, giving him a worried glance from the corner of her eye.

How strange it was to remember that not even half a year ago, Demetri and he had spent hours a time in the store, poring over issues of their favorite comics, getting into good-natured, geeky arguments about whether it was better to have super-strength or invisibility as a super power. Had so little time actually passed since then? It had seemed much longer. "Things change," said Hawk, his eyes squinting meanly as they continued to stare at nothing out the window.

His phone pinged as they pulled into their neighborhood. Hawk pulled it from his pocket with hardly a thought. A text from Moon:

_we need to talk asap_


	9. Krav

_You get into a fight?_

_With Miyagi-Do. We lost._

_No, you didn't._

Hawk paused his savage pummeling of the punching bag at hearing those words come from Sensei Kreese. Turning around hesitantly, he watched as the King Cobra walked leisurely from the doorway up to him, where his instructor then looked him square in the eyes and emphasized, "The fight is only over when you say it is." Hawk perked up some, the faint beginning of a smile turning on the corner of his mouth to replace the scowl he had been wearing all that night.

He needed to hear this after the day he'd had. Hawk was desperate to hear some actual words of encouragement from someone, _anyone_, he was starving for them. He couldn't end the night on being dumped by his girlfriend for his behavior at the mall; it was too crushing, too emasculating, too devastating to handle. He needed vindication that he had been right to do what he did.

Wrapping a hand over Hawk's bare shoulder, Sensei Kreese motioned his head towards the door, suggesting, "How about you and I get a bite to eat, sit down and talk a little? I know this American diner just a few blocks up the road. My treat. Humor an old man who would really like a hot pastrami sandwich right now."

Special attention from Sensei Kreese? Maybe this day could still be salvaged some, after all. Because, truth be told, Hawk was envious of whenever Miguel told him about all of the times Sensei Lawrence had taken him aside after classes for one-on-one chats. They had a close relationship, more than neighbors, they were almost like father and son by this point. Sensei certainly never paid Hawk the same sort of care, even after he'd flipped the script. But now maybe things were going in that direction with Cobra Kai's other teacher. It made Hawk feel special, and he couldn't say quickly enough, "Yes, Sensei."

They walked back through the hallway, across the mats, and outside the dojo, jingling the bell as they left. After locking the door behind them, Sensei Kreese retrieved Hawk's black t-shirt from where he'd tossed it on the ground earlier in anger, and handed it back to him. "Better put this back on." Yeah, that was probably a good idea. Undoubtedly it would look odd for Hawk to be walking around shirtless into a diner this late at night, no matter how awesome his tattoo was to behold.

It took some maneuvering, but Hawk managed to slip his shirt over his head without ruining his mohawk in the process, although it did stretch out his shirt collar some. No big deal, he had plenty of them. He let Sensei Kreese lead him by the shoulder again down to the end of the strip mall. The two then walked across the parking lot to the sidewalk, Hawk following behind Sensei Kreese as he strolled down the block.

The sounds of the living city were all around them that night - the passing traffic from the nearby road, the local homeless lady doing her nightly dumpster diving in the alleyway, and what might've been a drug deal going down across the street - but it wasn't enough of a distraction for Hawk. He didn't want to be in his own head at that moment. Right now all that was in there was debilitating self-doubt from having just been dumped by Moon. He really couldn't handle that, so he spoke up to distract himself from it. "Where's Sensei Lawrence?" he asked, just realizing that he hadn't seen him at all in the dojo that night.

"Oh, he left to deal with some family business," answered Sensei Kreese smoothly. "I told him I could handle things alone for a while, as he takes care of that. Don't worry, I'm sure he should be back tomorrow." He peered over his shoulder at his student for a moment. "Speaking of family business, tell me, was one of the Miyagi-Do students you fought Robby Keene?"

Hawk frowned, and he put his hands in his pockets. "Yeah. I mean, yes, Sensei." He expected Sensei Kreese to comment further on that, but he got strangely silent, just taking another look at him from over his shoulder before turning at the end of the block. So Sensei Kreese knew that Robby was Sensei Lawrence's son, too. Hawk still didn't understand why it had to be such a big deal.

He kept following his Sensei, and once they reached the end of that street, they arrived at the diner. It was just a normal, run-of-the-mill type of establishment, nothing spectacular, just the kind someone would find if they took any exit off the interstate in the Midwest. Sensei Kreese led them inside and over to sit at a booth in front by the window.

They were two of only a handful of customers that night, it looked like. A waitress came by to manage their table in just a few seconds, practically as soon as their butts hit the seats. Sensei Kreese stopped her before she could hand them any menus, simply smiling as he said, "I think we already know what we want. I'll take a hot pastrami on rye, chips for the side." He gave a nod towards Hawk. "And bring the kid a nice, ice-old root beer float, alright, doll-face?"

Hawk noticed the look the waitress gave him, the way her eyes didn't even notice his bold red hair, but focused instead on the black-and-blue bruise on his left cheekbone; and then how her glance fell back on Sensei Kreese for a moment, like she was suspicious about something, leaving Hawk to wonder what she must've been thinking. But in the end, she just wrote down their orders, saying, "Coming right up." Eli thought about speaking up to say that he really didn't care all that much for root beer, that, in fact, he quite disliked the stuff. But Hawk held his tongue. He wasn't about to insult Sensei Kreese's generosity.

As soon as the waitress stepped away, Sensei Kreese rubbed his hand over his worn knuckles for a minute, and he gave Hawk a long, hard look through his gruff features, eyes squinting under thick eyebrows. Apropos of nothing, he suddenly asked, "You're a Jew, right?"

Sitting in that booth in the mostly empty diner, Eli went cold in an icy instant as it felt like all of the blood suddenly drained out of his body at that question, at the brusque way it had been asked. Anxiety surged like electricity through him, his breathing becoming shallow and rapid, and in his mind the constant bombarding of warnings from his rabbis through the years blared through his brain that it was only a matter of time before something like this happened, even in liberal California.

Seeing the way Hawk had gone rigid, how the color had left his cheeks and his eyes had gotten as wide as saucers, Sensei Kreese stopped rubbing his knuckles, and instead leaned back in his booth, stretching his arms over the top cushion in an effort to look less imposing. "Moskowitz, that's a Jew name, isn't it?" he tried asking in a different way. Eli's eyes darted to the door, like he needed to plan a sudden escape, before managing to force a soft, almost shaky nod of his head. Sensei Kreese smiled again, somehow managing to look even more threatening when trying not to. "Just asking, kid, you speak any Hebrew?"

Hawk let out a deep breath, relieving the soreness that had risen to his shoulders. He tried to will his heart to stop hammering in his chest. Now he just felt stupid. God, he was acting like such an idiot. Sensei Kreese wasn't a threat. He probably had no idea how hostile his questions had even come across. The man was pushing eighty, that was most likely just his age leading him to not knowing how to phrase things better. All those warning bells accelerating in his head could quiet down now. "Uh, y-yes, Sensei," he answered, releasing the grip his hands had on the booth seat and bringing them up to lay on top of the table.

"Have you ever heard of '_Krav Maga_'?" his instructor inquired, drumming his fingers on the top cushion.

Quickly racking his brain to remember all of the Hebrew he'd practiced over the years, Eli tried to place those words. "Um, I think it translates into 'contact battle'," he said, creasing one of his eyebrows.

White teeth flashed behind Sensei Kreese's smirk. "That's right." Their conversation was put on hold a moment as the waitress returned to their table with their orders, setting the root beer float in front of Eli and handing Sensei Kreese his plate. "Thanks, babydoll," said John Kreese with a wink before turning his attention back to Hawk. "Back during the 1930s, things were starting to get ugly in Europe, as I'm sure you know. This Jew named Lichtenfeld could see trouble from a mile away, and wanted to develop a type of fighting style to protect his people from the growing threat. You see, he knew all about boxing and wrestling, but these were for show, competitive fighting. Not very practical for when Nazis got a target on your back."

Eli started fumbling with his fingers on the table nervously out of old habit as he listened closely, largely ignoring the root beer float his Sensei had ordered for him. He didn't feel especially comfortable talking about anything involving the Shoah with other people, especially people who weren't Jewish. Lots of kids in his school seemed to enjoy learning about World War II, some of them to a disturbing degree, but mostly those history classes just left Eli feeling sick to his stomach. But Hawk knew he couldn't act that way in front of Sensei Kreese. "What happened to him?" he asked.

Swallowing the bite of the sandwich he'd just taken, Sensei Kreese explained, "He had to flee the country when he saw everything turning to shit. After that, he made the decision that he would never again rely on others to save his people from extermination. He knew only they could rely on themselves going forward. So he developed Krav Maga, one of the most lethal martial arts techniques there is."

He paused a moment to eat more of his pastrami sandwich and take a few gulps of water, leaving Hawk to process what he was being told. "What makes it so lethal, Sensei?" asked his student, sitting up straight.

"You see, karate has a competitive form, like boxing. We have you kids training first and foremost to fight in tournaments," said Sensei Kreese, taking a bite out of a dill pickle. "But there are no tournaments in Krav Maga, because there is no concept of 'fighting dirty.' Their philosophy is that you do whatever you need to do to take your enemy down. It's not just about self-defense, it's self-preservation. There are no rules, no forbidden techniques, no restrictions. Your only goal is to finish the fight so you come out the winner."

"Wow!" exclaimed Hawk breathlessly. Krav Maga sounded legit. And his people had developed it? That was so badass. "I can't believe no one's told me about this before. Sensei, why not just base Cobra Kai on that instead of karate?" Miyagi-Do was trying to preach that karate was originally intended to be all about inner peace and enlightenment. Krav Maga sounded like it cut through the bullshit; it sounded right up Cobra Kai's alley.

That question appeared to amuse the King Cobra, judging by his raised eyebrow. "I'd already formed the basis of Cobra Kai karate before I got a chance to see Krav Maga in action. Besides, it would've been difficult to convince people about the need for such…ruthless defense, back when I opened my first dojo to the public. You Jews needed it because you understood how threatening the world can be. But we Americans at the time? Even during 'Nam, people here felt pretty safe and secure. They didn't believe in the necessity of ending a threat completely, they didn't understand what it meant to do everything it takes to survive. But rest assured, I was inspired by what I saw of Krav Maga and incorporated a lot of its style into my karate over the years; so when you fight using Cobra Kai, you're still honoring your heritage, kid."

"Really?" Hawk asked with a small smile. He had loosened up enough by then that he took the spoon in his root beer float and stirred it around a bit before taking a sip from the straw. He couldn't believe Sensei Kreese was sharing this information with him. None of the other students probably knew any of this, not even Miguel. "Did you see a lot of guys fight with it?"

Sensei Kreese finished one half of his sandwich, wiping off some dressing from his mouth slowly with a napkin, never taking his stern look off Hawk, before continuing. "Let me tell you a little history lesson," he said, folding his hand back over his knuckles ominously. "It was after they pulled us out of 'Nam, late 70s. Special forces selected me to join an elite team to go to Brazil to help take down that bastard Geisel; all off the books, of course. On my team, there was this Polish Jew fellow. Just by looking at him, you'd never guess just how threatening this son-of-a-bitch could be.

"So while we were down there, this guy tells us he's found the location of a retired SS officer; a whole bunch of those cockroaches fled to Brazil after the war, the place is a dumping ground for history's losers. Now, we weren't there for any of that business, but this guy was adamant that we let him go take care of the Nazi. I gave him the okay, went with him to the Kraut's hideout one night. Oh, it was hot as hell that night, you'd think we'd stepped right into Dante's Inferno.

"Now, you gotta understand, this old Nazi had to be over seventy years old, and our Jew officer was maybe a little over forty. Most people would call this an unfair match, but that Nazi had been living with one eye watching his back ever since the war ended, so he was ready for us. As soon as he realized we were there, he pulled out his gun. The Kraut lasted maybe about five minutes before our fellow had him completely disarmed, using nothing more than the skills he'd learned from Krav Maga. He had that man begging him for mercy. And you know what he did? Gave that Nazi a nice, big, permanent smile, ear-to-ear." Sensei Kreese made a cutting motion across his throat, to imitate a knife slitting it.

"_Whoa!_" breathed Eli, his smile widening. "That's amazing!"

The King Cobra returned his smile with a grim smirk of his own. "It doesn't bother you that he didn't show an old man mercy?" he asked, darkly entertained.

"No," answered Eli, shaking his head, setting his empty glass aside. "He killed a Nazi. Why would any of them deserve mercy?" For all of his life, when the classrooms taught about World War II, his teachers had always framed his people as meek, passive sheep who'd been led to the slaughter without resistance. It was so rare that he got to hear stories about someone actually Jewish getting to exact revenge against the Nazis; usually that role of the hero was always reserved for Gentiles. Eli wouldn't have lost a wink of sleep if every Nazi on the planet was wiped out; he didn't even need Hawk to believe that would be justice well served.

Sensei Kreese nodded. "That's what our officer said. Some of the other men were a little put off by his lack of mercy. They were even more upset when they learned he took the Nazi's medals as trophies. They told him that the war was long over, that he needed to…get over it. But he told them that as long as any Nazi was still breathing, there would be no peace. The battle would only be over when he said it was."

Taking a moment to gulp down another drink of water, John Kreese watched as his words had their effect on Hawk, and he suspected his lesson had finally, truly sunk in. But just to be sure, he added, "Together, he and I must've exterminated at least fifteen retired Nazis while in Brazil, and from each one, he stripped them of their medals. Kept them as souvenirs, as a reminder that he'd been the one to finish the fight."

"That's so badass!" said Hawk, completely enthralled by the story. He couldn't get enough of Sensei Kreese's recounts of his previous military exploits. He already knew the man was totally formidable from the way he talked about taking down countless warlords in half a dozen countries, and now to learn he was also a Nazi-exterminator, this cemented into Hawk's mind that Sensei Kreese was truly an unappreciated hero.

But then there was that split second of doubt in Eli's mind, the shadow of uncertainty that creeped in as he remembered Miguel's misgivings regarding the validity of Sensei Kreese's stories, about how some of them didn't add up when held up to scrutiny. Hawk tried to dismiss that doubt, to chalk up any discrepancies to Sensei Kreese's age, and his having done so many amazing things during his lifetime that he just couldn't keep track of them anymore. Yet, Eli still found himself asking his instructor, "And all of this really happened?" He said it with such hope, desperate for it to be true.

Sensei Kreese gave him a tight, close-lipped smile, then shrugged one shoulder. "Why would I lie to you, kid?" he inquired, taking a bite out of the second half of his pastrami sandwich.

_So, you're the one that trashed Miyagi-Do?_

_They're the enemy. I had to put them in their place._

Hawk slipped back in through his window, tossing his backpack onto the bed first before he climbed in himself. He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the time: 2:24AM. Pretty damn late, hopefully his parents hadn't noticed him gone for so long, or heard his car pulling back in the driveway. He pinned his hopes on them being asleep, since they usually went to bed shortly after midnight. Because if they had noticed that he had stayed out half the night, what was he going to say in his defense? The truth? That he had just came back from completely trashing the Miyagi-Do Karate Dojo?

Perhaps "trashing" was putting it lightly. Hawk and his teammates had swept through Miyagi-Do like a veritable hurricane, leaving nothing but destruction and ruin in their wake. Nothing escaped their annihilation. There was the inside of the dojo, where they'd flipped all the furniture, thrashed everything down from the shelves, broke knick-knacks, tore down signs and pictures from the walls, and everywhere they could, they spray-painted over haphazadly.

To say nothing of what they did to the outside. They had ripped rice papers to pieces. They'd gutted a sand-filled punching bag and pulled it down. They tossed bonsai tress into the koi pond. They overturned decorative stones. They tossed trash everywhere on the lawn. Hawk himself left their calling card on the side of a yellow 1947 Ford in bright red paint: COBRA KAI NEVER DIES.

As for why he did it? Heh.

That would teach Miyagi-Do to mess with Cobra Kai. That would teach them to mess with_ him_. Fuck with the Hawk, you get the talons.

His phone vibrated in his hand. The other Cobras involved texted the group chat and let each other know they'd made it home without getting caught. Two names were conspicuously missing: Miguel and Aisha. Hawk had never asked them to come and wreck the dojo in the first place. Was it because he was worried they'd try to talk him out of it, as they were the only ones with the balls to challenge him? Was it because Eli didn't want to get his friends in trouble, in case the worst should happen? Was it because he was afraid they'd be disappointed in him if they found out what he was planning to do? Hawk himself couldn't even be completely sure. Maybe it was a combo of all three reasons.

Flipping back to his main text screen, Hawk's eyes were drawn to the one immediately below the group chat; his last text to Moon:

_sure thing. meet you at CK in an hour_

His shoulders slumped some, and his thumb hovered over it for a minute before he just switched to his iTunes app instead. Fuck that. He still didn't want to deal with any of those feelings from being dumped. Better to stew in the sharp warmth of his anger than to dip his toe in the cold smothering pool of grief. Better to just repress that shit.

Nobody was ever going to hurt him again.

He grabbed his powerbeats from on top of his desk and popped one earbud in, leaving the other ear free to hear out for any warning signs that his parents were approaching. His thumb scrolled up and down through the list of artists - Drake, Lil Dicky, Hoodie Allen, Matisyahu, etc. - before settling on Daveed Diggs and selecting 'Small Things to a Giant' to play on repeat.

Turning on his lamp and kicking off his shoes, Hawk then reached down and unzipped the front pouch of his backpack and pulled it out: the medal of honor. His trophy, the symbol of his victory over Miyagi-Do Karate. He'd never expected to see something like that just hanging on a wall in a dojo, and he had no idea who it actually belonged to; he didn't think Mr. LaRusso ever served in the military, maybe it was a family heirloom or something. But it didn't matter. As soon as Hawk saw it, he knew he needed it. So, acting on impulse, he smashed the glass cover and took the thing, knowing for sure the souvenir would make him feel badass whenever he looked at it going forward.

And yet….

Hawk had hoped he'd get more of a gleeful feeling from holding the medal in the palm of his hand, that it would bring him some well-earned Schadenfreude, providing the proverbial salt in the wound for the Miyagi-Do crew. It was an emblem to his success, after all. He'd finished the fight on his terms, he'd completely decimated his foes, they would be reeling from this blow for a long time afterwards. He'd struck first, he'd struck hard, and he'd shown no mercy, just as he'd been taught.

But, standing in his bedroom now, looking down at his spoils, it didn't bring the sort of happiness Eli had hoped for; the whole thing felt depressing, actually.

That wasn't fair.

Walking over to his dresser, Hawk opened the box on top of it and pulled out a dog-tag necklace. Unfastening it, he pulled the dog-tag off and slipped the chain through the hook on the medal of honor. He refastened the necklace around his neck, and tucked the medal under the collar of his shirt. The metal laurel felt cool resting against his collarbone, next to the tattoo of the crescent moon over his heart. Still, even wearing his enemy's medallion, that didn't make him happy.

Whatever. He would probably feel better about it tomorrow….

No! It wasn't right! He'd earned the right to feel good about this! Where was the satisfaction? Where was the gratification that had been promised to him? Where was that at? It wasn't fair that he would feel even the slightest bit bad over what he'd done. What the fuck was wrong with him? Miyagi-Do was the enemy. Fuck Robby Keene. Fuck Sam LaRusso and her dad. And fuck Demetri, especially. They deserved no mercy. Hawk slapped himself on the face to remind himself that, stirring his righteous fury up again.

The only thing that kept him from picking up something and throwing it against the wall again was the knowledge that it would definitely bring his parents' attention on him, and he didn't want a repeat of the previous night; besides, the last inanimate object that had felt his wrath - his television remote - still needed to be replaced, and he couldn't just go around breaking all of his stuff whenever he got angry.

Yet, the pent up frustration needed an outlet, and of course there was no punching bag in his room to unleash his fury on like there had been at the Cobra Kai dojo. If he didn't get the energy out now, right then, Hawk felt like he was going to explode.

Having no other options, Hawk decided to exercise himself to exhaustion. Turning up the volume of the song with the button on his headphones, he sprang into jumping-jacks, right there in the middle of the room. It got his heart pumping, the adrenaline flowing through his muscles. The sweat began dripping down his brow, his face flushing red from the labor, and Hawk clenched his jaw in aggression, angry at himself for being unable to just enjoy the fruits of his victory.

He just wished he could be there the next morning to see all their faces when they discovered the destruction. Everyone at Miyagi-Do was going to be so devastated, there was no way they'd see it coming. He tried to smile just thinking about, but his scowl remained etched on his face like stone, as the jumping-jacks left him gasping for breath.

So Hawk dropped to the ground and started doing pushups on his knuckles. He hoped the sight of the dojo torn to pieces made Sam cry, just so he could have the pleasure of rubbing it in her boyfriend Robby's face. That would be appropriate payback for what they'd done to him at the mall, for sticking their noses where they didn't belong and making a mockery of him like that.

Gritting his teeth, Hawk curled over on the floor and began a series of intense crunches, grunting through the soreness he still felt from the mall fight earlier that day. If Mr. LaRusso thought getting a dick tagged on one of his billboards was the biggest insult he'd ever received, just wait until he saw what Hawk had done to his car. Maybe he would think twice before encroaching onto his Sensei's turf again.

Collapsing on his back, panting hard at the sudden physical exertion, Hawk more than anything hoped the whole thing would show that bitch Demetri what happens when people betrayed him. That would teach him to bet on the wrong pony. All he'd had to do was join Cobra Kai, and saved them both all of this grievance.

Hawk's anger, finally abetted for now, left him lying there exhausted on the floor, leaving Eli once more to deal with the bitter aftertaste of its venom.

With a worn out sigh, Hawk stood back up and grabbed his phone, turning off the song and beginning the process of looking for another one. Then he went tense. "Eli?" came a voice, followed by a knock on his door. His mom. Shit, thought Hawk, practically dive-bombing back into his bed, tossing his headphones to the floor and flipping the light of his lamp off, scrambling with his lanky limbs to bring the comforter up to cover himself; he hadn't had a chance to wash his hair down, so he had no choice but to bring the blanket over his head completely, just in time to hear the door being opened.

He clamped a hand over his mouth in the hopes that his mother wouldn't hear him practically hyperventilating under the covers. It felt like she stood there forever, doing only God knew what, as Hawk tensely waited to hear his door close again, before he kicked his comforter back off; it was way too hot for that. That had been too close. Maybe it was just best to head to bed anyway at this point.

A quick glance at his alarm clock revealed it was 3:04AM now.

And Eli was tired of feeling angry. It had simply exhausted him. Now, he just wanted some sleep. It had been the longest day of his life, time to just end it already. He would just have to deal with the consequences of sleeping with his hair still up in his mohawk in the morning, and put up with the discomfort of trying to get comfortable resting his head on the pillow with it. It wasn't too bad if he slept on his side, he simply wouldn't be able to do a lot of tossing and turning. Good thing he didn't have a lot on his mind then, anything that would undoubtedly lead to restless sleep.

Eli reached up a hand and tried to rub the fatigue even more into his eyes, hoping it would help entice his body to just let him sleep peacefully that night.

Hawk's brows furrowed when his hand came back damp from something that wasn't sweat.

Fucking pussy.


	10. Thermal

_In a tournament, the fighting stops when you land a point. But in the real world, it's not about scoring points. It's about being a winner or a loser. And there are no losers in this dojo._

"Point, Hawk," announced Bert, raising his arm to waive a red flag.

It was the third day Sensei Lawrence had been away from the dojo. He was on bereavement, they'd been told, attending to the death of a friend of his, one of the original Cobras from back in the day. Sensei Kreese had taken charge of that day's lesson again in his absence, and once more he had the students sparring against each other in full combat.

Hawk had just knocked Mitch on his ass, and the other boy groaned when he had to pick himself back up, rubbing a sore shoulder as he did. It almost wasn't even fair. The only ones in that dojo that would've stood a chance against him were Miguel, Aisha, and maybe Tory. But it didn't matter to Hawk. A fight was a fight, and he was ready to win this one. Mitch was simply easy prey.

Mitch cast him a look of fear as Sensei Kreese called, "Fight!" Hawk took off, practically leaping from the floor to deliver a brutal elbow drive against Mitch's shoulder, sending the other boy spiraling around. Taking advantage of his opponent's dizziness, Hawk knelt down and swept his leg, bringing Mitch back to the floor, where Hawk hit the final blow with a punch to his chest. "Winner, Hawk," declared Bert.

"Better luck next time, Ass-face," Hawk said with a mean smirk at Mitch as he made his way to sit down on the sidelines. That made three straight victories in a row, after he'd already decimated Chubs and Red previously. Hawk felt untouchable. He might've felt that the medal of honor hanging from around his neck under his gi was giving him good luck, but he didn't need luck. Hawk had skills.

The dojo still looked gutted, since a good chunk of the students left to join Miyagi-Do instead. Chris. Nathaniel. And the others. Fucking traitors. They couldn't handle being badasses, they wanted to go and listen to Mr. LaRusso's kumbayah bullshit. That's what Hawk told himself, anyway. It was easier to convince himself of that than to admit the role he had played in driving them away by vandalizing the Miyagi-Do Karate Dojo, which proved to be the final straw for them when Mr. LaRusso had come busting into Cobra Kai demanding to know who'd done it.

Whatever, thought Hawk. No big loss. He'd successfully weeded out the quitters, that was all.

Sensei Lawrence should've been happy about that. But he hadn't been, in the slightest. Sensei Lawrence was completely _furious_, angrier than Hawk had ever seen him before, yelling at all of them that he never taught them to do anything like that. Hawk had found the line that even Sensei Lawrence wouldn't cross. When he demanded to know who'd done it, Hawk was so put off by his sudden temper, afraid of what he might actually do to him if he found out, that he kept his mouth shut, earning the entire dojo punishment with his silence.

Guilt did catch up to him, and Hawk had thought about confessing his misdeed. He considered approaching Sensei Lawrence, to try and explain why he'd did what he did, and admit his own confusion as to why his teacher would be so upset over it. He still didn't understand Sensei Lawrence's change in stance about showing mercy, but if ever there was a time to learn, that would've been it. But Sensei Kreese had told him to say nothing, that he would take care of it. After that, Sensei Lawrence had abruptly left to be with his friend and hadn't come back since. In the mean time, Sensei Kreese kept his promise and protected Hawk.

From where he stood to the side, observing the students, cross-armed and stern-faced, Sensei Kreese jutted his chin out. "Dieter, on the mat."

"Shit," muttered Dieter under his breath, but he nevertheless stood up and walked over to the center of the mat. He and Hawk gave one another a customary bow, then took their fighting positions. As soon as Sensei Kreese gave the signal, Hawk unleashed a roundhouse kick on his enemy, which Dieter impressively blocked. But, faking him out, Hawk spun around and delivered a hook kick to Dieter's back, sending him stumbling forward. The other student barely caught his footing, just in time to get punched in the side by Hawk's fist.

"Point, Hawk."

Hawk grinned uncannily at his challenger while they circled back to their original positions, taunting him. "Jesus Christ, aren't _any_ of you gonna give me a real fight?" Dieter got into fighting position again, but Hawk could tell this guy was just too intimidated by his fury to be a real threat; he would be too busy trying not to get pummeled to go on the offense.

His assessment proved correct when Sensei Kreese told them to fight. Hawk swept in, grabbing Dieter around his ribs, and tossed him to the ground, much as he did during his fight against Robby during the All-Valley Tournament. But when he dropped down to deliver the finishing blow, Dieter defensively curled up, springing his foot out on reflex and delivering an audible *_crack*_ as the ball of his foot made contact with Hawk's nose, sending him staggering backwards, hands flying to his face. "Holy shit, man, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do that!" Dieter apologized, rushing to his feet, but when he approached his opponent, Hawk pushed him away viciously, revealing a bloody mess beginning to pool from his nose onto his upper lip.

Just when Miguel and Aisha got ready to stand up and help, a voice from aside quelled them with a single question. "What are you waiting for?" All the students looked over at Sensei Kreese, who stared at them like he didn't understand what the fuss was about. Glaring at Hawk and Dieter, he told them, "Finish the fight." Dieter appeared uneasy about these orders, and looked to Hawk for a response.

It was Miguel who spoke up first, however, pointing out, "But Sensei, Hawk's bleeding pretty bad, shouldn't we at least check that his nose isn't broken?"

Sensei Kreese gave Miguel an impenetrable stare, but then smiled and shrugged his hands out towards Hawk. "Why don't we let Hawk decide whether or not he should quit?" he suggested with chilly amiableness, his white teeth flashing behind his smile.

Hawk could feel every eye on him in the dojo at that moment, every stare, just as he had that split-second he'd thought Sensei Kreese was going to expose him as the one behind wrecking Miyagi-Do. He felt gawked at, and Hawk _hated_ being gawked at. They were all waiting for him to make a decision. There was only one he could make. "I'm good. I'll finish the fight," he said with a loud sniff. What else was he going to do, be a pussy?

So even though he had white spots clouding his vision, he resumed a fighting stance and glowered at Dieter; the effect was even more pronounced with the blood beginning to trickle down his chin. "Fight!" called Sensei Kreese. Hawk whaled into Dieter, blocking his feeble punch with his arm before delivering a fore-fist thrust against his chest, knocking him down to the floor with the force of his hit.

"Winner, Hawk," declared Bert.

That would teach Dieter a lesson he hopefully wouldn't soon forget.

Nobody was ever going to hurt him again.

Sensei Kreese gave a small nod of approval and then announced, "Alright, let's change it up. Robinson and Diaz, you're up next." While Aisha and Miguel stood up and took their spots, Sensei Kreese motioned for Hawk to come over to him, and his student obliged.

"Let me see," said his instructor, taking Hawk's face roughly into his calloused hands. Sensei Kreese tilted his head back and peered at the damage, using one of his thumbs to apply a bit of pressure to the top of his nose, using the other to wipe some of the blood from his student's upper lip, revealing the scar underneath. "It's not broken, you're alright," he declared methodically, giving one last glance at his nose before glaring into Hawk's eyes sternly. "Remember, pain does not exist in this dojo, does it?"

"No, Sensei," answered Hawk. Sensei Kreese released him, and he then walked back over to sit down on the mat. Tory immediately knelt beside him, holding out a wad of gauze in her hand she'd just retrieved from the first-aid kit.

"Here you go," she said, sitting back down, and gave him a pat on his shoulder. "Good job."

"Thanks." Hawk took the gauze and pressed it against his nostrils like a tourniquet, turning his head up in an effort to stop the blood flow. His nose would undoubtedly be sore for the next couple of days, but it was worth it. Because at least he was a winner. That was all that mattered.

_I think you need a healthy dose of inner peace._

As soon as the game ended at Coyote Creek and their Senseis dismissed them, Hawk left. The Red Team all wanted to celebrate their surprise last-minute victory that Stingray had earned them with his sneak attack, but Hawk just wasn't in the mood after his battle with Miguel. He couldn't stand to see that look on his friend's face, the mixture of frustration and disappointment he leveled at him when their eyes met across the woods. He knew Miguel was angry at him for what he'd done, mad that Hawk would fly off the rails like that and not only trash the Miyagi-Do Karate Dojo, but also steal the LaRussos' medal of honor. Maybe he was also mad that Hawk didn't confess to it when all of the Cobras had been punished for the deed, too.

What right did Miguel have to judge him, thought Hawk bitterly as he drove down the highway. Just because Miguel was still pining for Sam (even though he was supposed to be dating Tory now), that was the only reason he would be upset about any of that business with the LaRussos. He'd really let his feelings for a girl come between them? What happened to bros before hoes?

And yet, Eli found himself feeling ashamed, because he _did_ value Miguel's opinion. Maybe more than anyone else's. Now his friend thought he was being an asshole. Worse still, he was absolutely right. Eli couldn't deny that.

Not wanting to go home yet, Hawk drove out to the mall to kill some time. The place was pretty packed, and yet he felt more alone there than if he had been in solitude back in his room. Maybe shopping would improve his mood. That used to always help after a particularly bad day at school, going to the mall and picking up the latest issue of a comic book or a new piece of memorabilia of a favorite show, that would help perk Eli up some.

What would Hawk do, though?

After doing a once around, and deciding there were no stores that interested him yet, he went to the food court, the site of his fight with Miyagi-Do, and ordered himself a basket of fries and a Diet Coke. Hawk parked himself at a table, propping his feet on top of it. Mindlessly munching on the fries, he played the battle over and over in his head, still wondering where it had went wrong. He needed to learn from his mistake, so he never lost to them again. Hawk guessed his biggest slip-up was trying to come at Robby from behind again, because that time Keene had been prepared.

A sudden shadow blocking the light in front of him grabbed Hawk's attention, and he looked up from taking a sip from his soda to see one of the mall cops from before frowning down at him. "Feet off the table," said the security guard, tapping on Hawk's sneakers with his baton.

"My bad," replied Hawk with a smug smirk, slowing bringing his legs back down.

The mall cop arched an eyebrow and shook his head. "Just stay out of trouble this time, you little punk. I'll be keeping an eye on you."

"Sure thing, anything for Valley Mall's Finest," quipped Hawk, flashing the guard a peace sign mockingly. As soon as the mall cop turned around to leave, Hawk's smile melted back into a glower, and he flipped his hand around to shoot the one-finger salute at the guard's back.

After finishing his food and tossing the trash away, Eli wandered around the mall aimlessly some more. He stopped by Under Armour and caught a sale on some tees and a hoodie, but that was the extent of his real shopping. It just didn't have the same magic that it used to. He passed by Quarter World; too childish. He walked away from Gamestop; too nerdy. He avoided ThinkGeek altogether; hell no.

Somehow he ended up walking to the front of the comic book store. People of all ages were inside, flipping through graphic novels, combing through boxes and boxes of back issues, there was even a D&D session set up in the back that had drawn quite a crowd. They all looked like they were having fun. And Eli started to remember, he, too, used to have fun in there. It drained him to remember all the times he and Demetri had went there after school, and to know he'd never get to do it again.

Standing there outside the entrance, watching people come and go, Eli felt a sudden profound sadness.

Until he locked eyes with the owner of the shop. As soon as the owner cast a warning glance his way, Hawk scowled and turned on his heel, trudging away. Whatever. What he did he care about any of that nerd shit? That comic book guy had done him a favor by permanently banning him. He had saved Eli from himself, from succumbing to that weak-willed sissy part of him that still wanted to enjoy geeky things.

Hawk wanted to scream at himself whenever he got nostalgic like this. Didn't he remember how bad things used to be? Had he so easily forgotten how pathetic his life had been before Sensei Lawrence showed him he was a sniveling little nerd who needed to embrace the way of the fist? What did Hawk have to do to make that lingering melancholy go away?

He simply needed to get out of the mall. The temptations were too real. If he didn't book it, he might end up leaving with fucking _Mystery Science Theater_ DVDS or some shit. And if he did that, he might as well have just walked right over to Miyagi-Do and handed them his balls in an envelope. He couldn't risk a relapse, better to just remove himself from the attractions.

And do what? Whatever the hell he wanted. Hawk had a fake ID, the choices were practically endless. If he wanted to, he could go find a bar right at that moment and get so shit-faced that even Sensei Lawrence would be impressed. And Hawk almost did. Going back to his car, he thought about asking Siri where the closest bar was, just so he could say later that he'd done it. After all, it wasn't like it was the first time he'd be drinking underage.

But he really didn't want to get drunk right now. What he wanted was to relax.

When was the last time he even felt relaxed?

Instead of asking Siri for directions to a bar, Hawk somehow ended up opening the Instagram app on his phone. His feed was full of photos from the Red Team, who'd celebrated their win at the local Applebee's. Scrolling down, Eli stopped when he came across a picture of Moon. She'd posted a selfie of herself at the beach, looking as happy and carefree as she always did. One never would have suspected she was recovering from a breakup.

She still hadn't blocked him. Hawk had no idea why. A small, hopeful part of Eli wanted it to be because Moon secretly regretted breaking things off, that she still loved him. The more rational part of him knew there was no deeper reason for why she hadn't blocked him, that just wasn't the sort of thing Moon would do to anyone.

Eli's hand ghosted over the crescent moon tattoo on his collarbone. Whenever his thoughts drifted to Moon, it felt like cement had dried in his chest.

Enough of that shit, thought Hawk. Was he really going to get emotional over some chick?

But looking at pictures of Moon did give him an idea for how he could relax. So, tossing his phone aside and turning on his engine, Hawk drove away from the mall, and back towards town.

Eli could remember just a little over a year prior, there had been no marijuana retailers, no legal ones anyway. Now their city was full of them, truly a booming industry. So when the first dispensary tossed him out after not feeling his fake ID, he simply drove a couple blocks over and tried another one. He had no issues getting inside this one, and was greeted by a whole wall lined with more types of cannabis than anyone, besides the most ardent stoner, could imagine or identify, and whole shelves of pot paraphernalia. It was almost overwhelming.

The first thing he did was go over to one of the shelves and snatch a lighter, knowing he'd need one of those. Then he walked across to another shelf to look at the methods by which people could smoke weed: bongs, rigs, vaporizers, bubblers, bowls, some of these things looked so intricate that Eli had no idea how they even worked. He stuck to what he knew, and picked out a glass pipe, like the one he'd used that night in the park with Moon after Valley Fest. Now all he needed was some actual weed.

"Hey, brah, what are you looking for?" asked a budtender, walking from behind a counter to approach Hawk. Eyes flashing up to his mohawk, he added, "Sweet spikes, man!"

"Thanks, G," replied Hawk, still looking at the nearly limitless variety of choices lined up behind the counters. Just what _was_ he looking for here? He had no clue, he was completely in over his head. But he couldn't give off that air, he had to keep his cool; otherwise the employees would figure out he was just a kid and didn't belong there. Confidence was the key, as always. "Maybe you can rec me something. My bitch has been busting my balls lately, and my boss just won't stop reaming my ass over dumb shit, I'm getting it from all ends. If I don't get to relax soon, I'm gonna lose it."

The budtender nodded understandingly. "I hear you. Sounds like you need an indica strain. We got Hash Plant, Shiskaberry, Kosher Kush, Herijuana, Northern Lights. Anything in particular you got a preference for?"

Hawk just stood there for a minute with a blank expression on his face. Just how completely burnt did some stoner have to be to come up with these names? Eli impulsively picked one that at least had a word in it he recognized. "Uh, Kosher Kush, yeah, I'll take some of that."

"Alright, and how much you need?"

What was this, 20 fucking Questions? How arduous did they need to make it in order for someone to just get some weed? Hawk mentally scrambled to remember how the stuff was measured, and recalled hearing at some point, "Just give me an eighth, man."

The budtender nodded and returned behind the counter to retrieve the marijuana. Hawk watched as he packed it and put it, the lighter, and the glass pipe inside a bag by the cash register. "Okay, just gotta see your ID real quick and then we can ring you up." Hawk retrieved his fake ID from his wallet and handed it over. The budtender squinted his eyes at seeing the name, and gave a skeptical back and forth between the ID and Hawk's face. Hawk was worried that maybe he wouldn't fall for it either, and that he was going to have to try for a third time somewhere else.

But the budtender just shrugged and handed him his ID back, taking his money and completing the transaction. Score another win for the Hawk. "Thanks," he said, turning to leave.

"Just be careful with that stuff, _Mr. Hawkman_," called out the budtender with a sly smile. "It can be pretty potent if you're not used to it." Hawk just scoffed, rolling his eyes as he left the dispensary.

He drove and parked his car at the far end of a Wal-Mart parking lot close to his neighborhood, where he then took out the weed, lighter, and pipe. Remembering how Moon had done it, he packed the marijuana into the glass pipe, then lit it, taking a big hit through the mouthpiece. He didn't expect it to have an almost fruit-like taste, making it more pleasant than whatever type Moon had him smoking that night.

Hawk took another couple hits, taking in big breaths, holding it for a couple seconds before unleashing the smoke back out his mouth; he briefly wondered how long it would take to get the smell of reefer out of his car, but then tossed the thought aside, knowing he could deal with that later. It didn't take long for the body buzz to hit and his muscles to unwind. It felt good. He leaned back his car seat and puffed some more, trying his best not to think about Moon as he did it, with little success.

Moon had called him a bully. Was she wrong? He belittled the new Cobras all the time, called them degrading names, and justified it because that's how Sensei Lawrence had treated him when he first joined Cobra Kai. He took his frustrations out on Miyagi-Do so completely because at least they were an enemy he could actually fight. He could have them serve as convenient proxies for all the people who'd hurt him that he'd never get to have closure from, even if those students weren't the ones who'd done him the initial harm, because at least it was _something; _Miguel had gotten to beat up Kyler and his gang, Aisha got her revenge on Yasmine, but what did Hawk get? Where was the resolution for his resentment? And he'd turned on his best friend, because it was easy for Hawk to project his insecurities and shame onto him; Demetri saw through Hawk's bullshit, he always did, and he had the audacity to not completely hate himself for being a nerd.

Eli took another big hit from the pipe, blowing the smoke into his car, letting those heavy thoughts weigh down on him.

Moon was right. Hawk _was_ a bully. But so what, thought Hawk? What was his alternative? Should he just go back to normal? Go back to being the sniveling little dweeb with the mousey hair, the dorky clothes, the pussy who would rather lock himself in a bathroom stall and cry than actually stand up for himself? If that was his only choice, then Hawk was fine being a bully.

Because the person Hawk bullied the most was Eli. He, more than anyone else - more than the new Cobras, more than Miyagi-Do, more than Demetri - deserved it. Nothing that Kyler, Brucks, Yasmine, or any of his other bullies had ever said could match the vitriol that Hawk leveled at him on the daily. At least with the others, Eli could escape the abuse, because he didn't live with them; even with the online bullying, he could turn his phone off and get some reprieve. But Eli couldn't escape Hawk, because they were the same person.

Hawk wouldn't tolerate any bit of weakness because that reminded him that he was still Eli, he was still that meek boy beneath the hardcore badass, nothing he did would ever change that, and, sooner or later, everyone was going to figure it out. And, in the mean time, Eli could live with all the self-hatred because, as Hawk, at least he could protect himself from external threats now. He would do _anything_ to keep from being bullied again.

But those stressful thoughts slowly started to leave him as Eli continued smoking, and the pot began to leave him sedated. That budtender was right, this really was some potent stuff. Hawk loved it. He loved it because it let him see the big joke behind all of the shit he'd gone through of late. Him, becoming the bully? All because Eli was a cowardly little shit who was too scared to give up being Hawk? That was so fucking hilarious. Hawk couldn't help but bust out laughing at that.

It was a good thing he'd decided to smoke so close to his home, because if he'd had to drive any farther back than he did, he probably would've crashed the car. Somehow he made it home in one piece, despite how utterly blitzed he was as he practically stumbled through the door.

"Hi, honey," said his mother, setting down a plate at the kitchen table. Hawk laughed a little under his breath, finding her choice of word funny; he certainly was. "Dinner'll be ready in about ten minutes, why don't you go wash up?"

Food sounded so good right then, and Hawk's stomach growled at smelling the aroma of lamb shoulder with sour plums. "Yeah," he responded lethargically. Now he just needed to find his way to the bathroom. But when he tried walking towards the hallway, his feet staggered over themselves, and Eli tripped to the floor. It was the most hysterical thing he'd ever done, how could he not just laugh at himself lying there? God, what a loser.

"Oh my God, are you alright?" asked his mother, running over to help him stand back up. Put off by his self-deprecating chuckling, she immediately sensed something was wrong. Seeing his heavy-lidded eyes and goofy smile, she went into full Mom Mode. "Eli, look at me," she said, taking his face in her hands. Hawk settled his wandering vision on her, oblivious to the look of extreme concern on her features. "Honey, your eyes are red." Catching a whiff of a pungent odor, Ruth leaned forward and sniffed the distinctive stench coming off her son's clothes. "Are you high?!" she asked disbelievingly.

Shaking his head, Hawk chuckled and lied, "Nah." Of course he lied. It was practically second nature to him by now. But he couldn't lie his way out of this one, definitely not in the state he was in. His mom didn't buy it for a second.

"Simon!" called out his mother, leading his father to come in from the living room. She swiftly told him her suspicions, and his dad could confirm that, indeed, their son was high off his mind. "Eli, did you just drive back like this?" demanded his mom, her eyes wide and heated.

"Don't worry about it," he answered sluggishly. His eyelids were getting really heavy now, and his mouth tasted like cotton balls.

That response just set his mother off more. "Are you out of your mind?! Do you realize you could've been killed? What on Earth has been going on with you lately?" she asked, every word anxious and fearful, gripping his shoulders to keep him from simply falling over again. But her words had no effect on him right then, he was too out of it to register the severity of what he'd done. Getting no response, Ruth looked to her husband and asked, "Should we take him to see Doctor Cohen?"

"No, I think he'll be okay," Simon said. "Looks like whatever he took was some kind of relaxer. He just needs to sleep it off. C'mon, son." He wrapped a hand around Eli's shoulder and led him back towards the living room.

Hawk put up some weak resistance, but his muscles were too relaxed to make it much of a fight. "But I'm thirsty," he objected, noticing how dry his mouth had gotten. Yet, a nap sounded good too. But he really was thirsty. He tried to reach back towards the refrigerator, but his dad pulled him away from it.

"Nope, no drinks before bed," his father reminded him, pushing him gently all the way to the sofa. "Take a nap, we'll wake you up in a couple hours to talk about this." Hawk's hazy mind tried to think of another objection. He was thirsty, hungry, and sleepy all at once. Sleep won out, though, as soon as he laid down and his head hit the cushion. He only barely registered his dad tossing a blanket over him before he was out cold.

When Eli groggily cracked open his eyes again later, it was darker out. Someone had turned off the living room lights, but he could see the brightness coming from the kitchen, the shapes of his parents sitting at the table. After a couple minutes, as the effects of the reefer started wearing off, he could make out their voices, too. He was still so relaxed, however, that he didn't move from his spot, but instead quietly listened in as they talked.

"…think we should at least take his TV and laptop away," said his father, sitting crosslegged in his chair, arms crossed. "At least until school starts. Maybe limit his phone use while he's in the house, too." So they were talking about punishment. Well, what did Hawk expect? It was bound to happen sooner or later, that he would get caught in a lie and get grounded for it. Now he just felt ridiculous. He should've come in through his window, not through the front door. What had he been thinking?

Clearly, he hadn't been thinking at all.

"What about his karate lessons?" asked his mother, her arms laid out on the table, wringing her hands. "Should we put those on hold?"

"If we separate him from his friends, he's only going to act out worse," pointed out Simon Moskowitz, pushing his glasses up his nose. At least his dad understood, thought Hawk with relief. He could live without some of his electronics for a while, if he had to. But not without Cobra Kai.

Ruth retorted to her husband, "But he's already getting worse. He's always moody and snappish, and he's lying to us, Simon. Remember, he lied to me directly about starting the fight at the mall. I don't know what's happened to him lately, but whatever it is, it's escalating out of control." So his mother _didn't_ really believe him when he lied about not starting the fight with Miyagi-Do. It was Hawk who had been suckered. She'd set him up, given him the chance to come clean, and he'd failed.

"Something is stressing him out," said his father. "His bed-wetting's got worse again, three times this past week. It only gets this bad when something stress-related's going on. But he won't tell me what."

"Do you think it has to do with his girlfriend breaking off their relationship?" asked his mom. "I know these teen romances come and go, but it was his first, and you know how sensitive he is."

His dad gave a shrug in response. "Maybe. But he was already getting temperamental with us before that. I think it's a bigger problem. I've tried talking about the situation with Rabbi Dershowitz, she recommended a couple child psychology books to check out. But from the sounds of it, she thinks maybe Eli's masking depression with anger."

"Depression?" asked his mother, voice almost cracking on the word. "But things seemed to be going so well for him for a while. I didn't mind the haircut, because I thought it made him happy, and it seemed to give him a boost of confidence. And he's gotten more friends, we always wanted that for him. And he hasn't told us about anymore people picking on him. I don't understand what would be making him sad."

His father shrugged again. "I don't know, either. At least before all of this change, he came to us with his problems, at least they were easy to spot. Now, I have no clue what's going on with him anymore."

An unexpected cry from the kitchen made Eli lift his head from the cushion a little. "Mom?" he whispered, his voice as dry as sandpaper. But neither of his parents heard him, because suddenly his mother was covering her face with her hands, tears falling thick in the ferocity of her open grief as she cried.

"Oh Simon, our boy's so sad," she sobbed, her shoulders shaking even as her husband stood up to try and comfort her. "He's sad, and nothing I do can make things better for him."

Clenching his teeth, Eli squinted his eyes shut and rolled over to face the back of the couch. Guiltily, he covered his ears, blocking out the sounds of lamentation coming from the kitchen. He hadn't meant to make his mother cry, he'd never wanted to do that, and he couldn't listen to the sounds of her misery knowing he was the cause of them. When had he turned into such a shitty son?


	11. Talons

_About Coyote Creek, we cool?_

_We were enemies for a day, but Cobra Kai for life._

"Order numbers 13 and 14 are up." Miguel and Hawk grabbed their trays from the Panda Express counter and walked over to find a table at the center of the food court in the mall. It had been a whirlwind of a day at the dojo, and both of them agreed some cheap Chinese food would do them some good.

"It's so wild that Sensei Kreese is actually gone," commented Hawk, pushing a straw through the lid of his Diet Coke. The reality of that still didn't feel real to him, it was almost like living in a weird dream. He'd expected to show up to practice and have everything be status quo. He was actually hoping for some normalcy after the night he'd had previously. Instead, they'd been told that Sensei Kreese would never be coming back to Cobra Kai. Even though he understood that a skilled karate student needed to learn how to adapt, Hawk didn't like sweeping changes like that. It reminded him of how little control over his life he really had. "What do you think happened between him and Sensei Lawrence?" he asked Miguel, knowing sometimes his friend and Sensei talked about stuff in more detail in private.

The other boy shrugged, swallowing a spoonful of rice. "He wouldn't tell me anything in particular, so you know as much as I do." All Sensei Lawrence had told them in class was that Sensei Kreese's methods were old and outdated, and that he didn't have their best interests at heart anymore, so Sensei had told him to hit the road. Miguel could hazard a guess, however, at what specifically had been the catalyst for their teacher kicking his own sensei, the very founder of Cobra Kai, out. "But I think Sensei didn't like Sensei Kreese teaching us to _never_ show mercy."

"That thing again, huh?" asked Hawk, biting down on a piece of orange chicken with an irate huff. Sensei Lawrence was getting really confusing with his whole "sometimes we should show mercy" change of heart. Things used to be simple: strike first, strike hard, no mercy. Black paint on a white wall. Hawk had understood the words, he lived by them. Now it was becoming all muddled, with all of this shades-of-grey talk. Sensei Lawrence was a good teacher, but he wasn't exactly eloquent at explaining himself sometimes. _When_, exactly, were they supposed to show their opponents mercy? Sensei never specified. "Sounds like he's just setting us up to get our asses kicked," he said, almost blasphemously.

Miguel shook his head, coming to their Sensei's defense. "No, he'd never do that. You didn't see how upset he was after I kicked you in the face."

Arching a skeptical eyebrow, Hawk asked, "Why would that make him upset?" This was the same man who'd unleashed aggressive junkyard dogs on them. Eli had puncture wounds from the dog bite on his posterior to prove that Sensei Lawrence wasn't exactly the worry-himself-over-his-students-getting-hurt type. It wasn't that Hawk blamed him, he knew Sensei Lawrence did what he did to make all of them tougher. What, had things suddenly changed?

"You were already down," pointed out Miguel, pushing his sesame chicken around his plate with his fork. "Sensei Kreese told me to finish you off. I didn't have to do that. I think that's what Sensei got so upset about. I mean, he's tough but he's fair. What Sensei Kreese told me to do was pretty harsh, considering I'd already taken your headband."

Hawk swallowed a sip of his drink and countered with, "So what? You had to finish the fight. I lost, I deserved it." If there had been any part of him that thought maybe Sensei Kreese would show him any preferential treatment, it had been kicked out of him that day at Coyote Creek. But Hawk didn't condemn Sensei Kreese for that, he didn't hold his actions against him. The King Cobra had stressed to him how the world was ruthless and unforgiving, and the importance of coming out on top at all costs. It wouldn't have been fair if Sensei Kreese had held Miguel back from finishing him off. He had to learn his lesson. It was important that it sink in. That was worth a sore jaw. Next fight, Hawk would just make sure he didn't lose.

"I don't know, man, maybe you just had to have heard the way he said it." Miguel bit his lip in uncertainty, recalling the cold, callous manner in which Sensei Kreese had given him the order. _Finish him_. And he'd been so swept up in his own victory at the time, so frustrated by Hawk's erratic behavior against Miyagi-Do, he'd had no problems obeying it. And that worried him, made him see what Sensei Lawrence was getting at with his misgivings towards Sensei Kreese's methods. "It really didn't bother you at all, me showing no mercy like that? You aren't the least bit angry?" he asked his friend.

"Nope," said Hawk, and resumed to eat more of his orange chicken. Whether or not it bothered him was irrelevant. He didn't understand why Miguel wanted to make such a big deal out of it. He didn't hold any grudge against his friend for winning, and he didn't know why Miguel would feel conflicted over it. In fact, _he_ had been elated that Miguel had reached out at the dojo earlier that day and made sure things were cool between them. Eli had worried himself ragged all morning over whether or not Miguel was going to hate him over vandalizing Miyagi-Do and stealing the medal of honor, and he was relieved beyond measure that his friend hadn't dumped him too.

Hawk could be angry at so many things. He was angry at all the bullies in his life for leaving him so resentful and bitter. He was angry at the students of Miyagi-Do for what they'd done to him and his dojo. Sometimes it felt like he was aimlessly angry at the whole world, for how unfair and merciless it could be. He even was angry at himself, maybe more than anyone else. But not at Miguel. He could never be truly angry at Miguel.

Because Eli remembered the day way back when in the library when Kyler had grabbed him, and how Miguel had told the jock to leave him alone. It was the first time anyone had stood up for him. Hawk would never forget that. He loved Miguel, and would do almost anything for him. No way he'd let one bad day come between them.

If Miguel kept chewing his bottom lip like that, he was going to tear the skin. He ended up confessing, "Well, I gotta admit, I felt pretty shitty afterwards. I mean, not about taking the medal back, but about kicking you in the face. Sorry about that."

Hawk smirked. "What, you telling me you didn't enjoy it? Not even a little?"

His friend allowed himself a slight chuckle under his breath. "Alright, just a little, the tiniest bit, really only like this much," said Miguel, holding up his hand to pinch his thumb and forefinger together to show how much he'd enjoyed it, but the smile on his face showed he meant no malice by it. "In my defense, you were kind of being a jackass."

"So see?" Hawk returned, scooping up another spoonful of rice. "No need to feel bad. Besides, you shouldn't feel guilty anyway. It's not like you actually hurt me. You kick like a total bitch." Laughter erupted from both boys at that, each flicking a bit of food at the other's face in jest, giving some levity to their conversation. It felt good for them to be able to laugh with each other again.

"Oh ho, so that's how it is?" chuckled Miguel, forking the rest of his food over to the center of the plate. "Alright, alright, I'll remember that. Next time I have to kick your ass? No guilt. None. Zilch. _Cero_. Deal?" He raised up his cup of Coke to Hawk at the question, leaving him to decide whether or not to toast to that.

Hawk's smirk curled higher, and he picked up his soda and clanked it against his friend's. "Deal." They both took a sip, each hoping they'd never have to have a serious fight again. Hawk was glad the awkwardness from Coyote Creek could finally be put behind them now.

Still, mulling over it, Hawk found he really was going to miss Sensei Kreese. The old man had given him special attention, where even Sensei hadn't. And even more so than Sensei Lawrence, the King Cobra had taught him that he had no one to truly rely on but himself, and that he had to do everything necessary to protect himself from real world harm, not just win karate tournaments. Sensei Lawrence had taught Hawk to fight, but Sensei Kreese had taught him how to survive. How could such a valuable lesson be against his best interests?

Sensei Lawrence wasn't the type of man who'd tell Hawk if he asked about it, although part of him wanted to at least try. He'd probably just put him back on mat-scrubbing duty for a whole month instead, or even make him clean the toilet with his tongue just for having the audacity to ask. So whatever it was that made Sensei Kreese so allegedly dangerous to be around, Hawk guessed he'd never find out.

From Miguel's pocket, his cellphone pinged, and he pulled it out to check the text message that just came through. Hawk saw a half-goofy, half-embarrassed grin spread over his face. Eating the last piece of orange chicken, he asked him, "What? Your girlfriend send you something?" It was nice that Miguel was in good spirits more regularly now that he was going steady with Tory. Hawk should've congratulated him for making that move. Tory was an alpha. She was a much better catch than Sam. And she seemed to make Miguel happy, so that was a plus.

"Nah," answered Miguel as he texted back. "It's my mom, she's just checking up on me. Forgot to let her know I was coming out here. You know how moms are."

"Yeah," replied Eli, who started fumbling with his fingers self-consciously. He'd barely been able to look at his mother since he'd made her cry. Eli wanted to talk to her, to apologize, to let her know he never meant to hurt her like that. He wanted to be a good son. But Hawk kept his distance. He valued his independence too much. Part of being a man meant putting some much-needed distance between himself and a mother who could be too protective, too cloying, too emotional. Hawk wasn't five-years-old anymore. His mom just needed to understand that.

Another text came through, and Miguel asked, "Hey, you mind if we stop by the Wal-Mart before you drop me off? Mom wants me to pick up a couple things for my Ya-Ya, since I'm already out."

"Sure, no prob," answered Hawk, ceasing his nervous fidgeting, pushing his heavy thoughts to the back of his mind.

Miguel put his phone back into his pocket and took another gulp of his drink. "Mmm, but first let's stop by Spencer's. Tory and I got a date on Friday at the roller rink where she works. It's 80's night, and I need to pick up a certain style of glasses for my costume. I figure either Spencer's or Hot Topic will have them." Miguel's face then perked up, like a lightbulb went off in his head. "Oh hey! Why don't you come?"

"You inviting me out on your date? Didn't realize Tory would be okay with threesomes, but I'm down for it if she is," joked Hawk with a suggestive wink.

Miguel snorted back a laugh and shook his head. "No, I was _actually_ thinking maybe you could meet someone new there," he said, taking the last couple bites of rice left on his plate. "If you need costume ideas, I bet you could pull off a _Lost Boys_ look. A lot of girls really love that movie, apparently. You're pretty pale, you'd make a good punk vampire."

Hawk appreciated his friend's attempt to get his mind off of Moon, but he had to admit, "Thanks, but I can't. My parents got me on a strict 8 o'clock curfew the rest of the week."

Miguel gave him a sympathetic look. "That sucks, man. What happened?"

"Long story," dismissed Eli, downing the remainder of his drink. He was in no big hurry to tell Miguel about how he'd made a fool of himself getting stoned off his ass and how he'd landed in hot water with his parents because of it. Oh well. Maybe it was for the best. If he wasn't grounded, then he might have found himself being roped into going to the 80s party, and faced the formidable prospect of trying to find a new girlfriend.

Watching while Miguel finished off his Coke, Eli almost reached out to him for advice on how to get over Moon. How did his friend finally cut his heartstrings for Sam so he could give himself over to Tory? How could he take a risk like that, to be all vulnerable for someone again? He knew for a fact that it hadn't been easy for Miguel. Had he also felt so raw inside it was almost unbearable? Just what was the magic balm that soothed it?

He almost asked. Almost. Hawk, of course, kept his mouth shut. He couldn't ask Miguel a question like that. He especially wasn't in a place to say anything about mourning lost girlfriends, considering all the ribbing he'd given Miguel over his previous pining for Sam. If he hadn't been there and offered any sympathy when Miguel had been mopey, why did he deserve any? He didn't.

Fuck that noise. They were guys. And guys didn't talk about broken hearts. That was sissy shit.

And Hawk was no sissy.

_He's your friend._

_He's a fucking nerd! And he'll always be a nerd._

Loud giggles attracted Hawk's attention back to where Moon and her new girlfriend Piper were cuddling together in a chair, being openly and tenderly affectionate with one another. Eli's heart became heavy once more as it took beat after steady beat. The black cloud of melancholy hovered over him again, blocking out any good mood he'd just allowed himself by slipping into nerd talk with the boy sitting beside him on the couch.

Demetri gave him an empathetic glance. "I'd give up, man," he told him consolingly. "She's moved on."

The sound of his voice grated on Hawk's nerves, but he tried to keep his cool. He shouldn't make a scene, for Moon's sake. It was her house, after all. And he didn't want to acknowledge the validity of his friend's words, how painfully truthful they were. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that Moon _had_ moved on. She got to move on, leaving Hawk feeling listless and sullen.

Hawk looked to his only source of comfort, his Cobra Kai training, for advice. What had Sensei Lawrence taught them about girls? Never give up. Never stop pursuing. "Defeat does not exist," he muttered, taking another sip of beer from the red cup he'd been nursing.

He still had a shot. He could win Moon back. How, though? If she was with some other dude, Hawk could just go up and challenge him, kick his ass, prove he was the alpha, the better man. How was he supposed to compete against a girl? He didn't know how to fight against an enemy like that. God, what would Sensei Lawrence say if he found out Hawk lost his girlfriend to another chick? He'd probably call him a pussy, a wangless loser, a ballsless nerd. It was embarrassing to think about.

"There's that winning attitude that pushed her away in the first place," pointed out Demetri, frustration plain in his voice. Hawk glared at him from the corner of his vision, but just silently took another drink of beer in response. So Demetri was blaming him? If Demetri hadn't posted the one-star Yelp review, none of this would've happened in the first place. Eli had to convince himself that was the case.

Fuck the whole situation, thought Hawk. He didn't need Moon. Let her be with Piper. Hawk was Cobra Kai. All chicks wanted to date a Cobra Kai. He could score any number of hot babes, he could easily find a new relationship for himself. No, in fact, fuck relationships at all. He didn't have to stoke that fire, he didn't have to put himself on the line for a chick only to risk being burned again. The Hawk would just be a player. Get with as many babes as he wanted, but no strings attached. Use them and lose them. Sensei Lawrence had been all about that single's life, maybe he had the right idea.

Once bitten, forever shy.

It felt like a cobra had pumped venom into his heart and was now eating it whole, and Eli couldn't do anything to stop it. He tensed irately when Demetri put a friendly, comforting hand on his shoulder. Jesus Christ, couldn't this guy read a room and realize where his company wasn't wanted? "I think you need a healthy dose of inner peace," said Demetri. "It's worked for me."

Was that Demetri's goal by opening up with all that talk about _Doctor Who_? Get Eli's guard down by bringing up something he knew would get his attention (he was well aware of how much Eli hated Moffat's run on the show), weasel his way through a crack in the wall of repression Hawk had erected around his geeky interests, and then go in with his shade at Cobra Kai, with his Miyagi-Do hippy bullshit?

What was Demetri trying to say? That Miyagi-Do had brought him inner peace, while Cobra Kai had brought Eli nothing but misery and discord? That Miyagi-Do had taught him to love himself as he was, while Cobra Kai made Eli hate himself more than ever before? That Miyagi-Do had made him happy, while Cobra Kai left Eli feeling constant aimless anger?

It was the "snake in the grass" comment all over again. That figured. Those Miyagi-Do types were always sneaky and underhanded in their fighting style. They lured you in, then delivered an illegal crane kick to your face when you least expected it. Mr. LaRusso had taught Demetri well, but Hawk wasn't going to fall for it. He was too vigilant for that.

"Oh yeah?" asked Hawk with a mean smile.

"Yeah!" Demetri answered amiably, none the wiser to the malice behind his friend's smirk. That friendly look dropped from his face, however, when Hawk then stood up and tipped his cup of beer over Demetri's head, drenching his hair and shoulders with the drink. Demetri's mouth hung agape, his eyes wide in disbelief over how his efforts of reaching out had suddenly turned sour.

Hawk waited a second, expecting Demetri to stand up and fight. He wanted his friend to do it: to get angry, to hit him. He was itching for a fucking fight. But Demetri just looked up at him incredulously, the hurt plastered clear all over his face, in shock over what Eli had done. "That's what I thought," scoffed Hawk, shaking his head and tossing the empty cup contemptuously at Demetri's lap. "Still a pussy."

Leaving Demetri behind on the couch to towel the alcohol out of his hair, Hawk walked over to a keg, grabbed a clean cup, and poured himself another drink. He downed it in four large gulps, letting it soothe his nerves, then poured himself another. It felt like he had jagged bits of broken glass in his gut, cutting him up from the inside. And he didn't know why.

Demetri should've just minded his own damn business. Hawk didn't ask for his company. He hadn't wanted it. He didn't converse with traitors, if he could help it. And all of that nonsense about inner peace, what a chickenshit. Inner peace didn't protect someone when a bully had them in their sights. Demetri hadn't changed at all. He still avoided all conflict. He was too much of a nerd to grow a damn spine and stand up for himself. What the hell had Hawk ever seen in him?

Maybe it was the boy who'd approached him in kindergarten, Eli recalled against his will, aided by the amber liquid going down his throat. He'd kept to himself. He'd always been shy, the other kids were put off by his lip, and he hadn't earned himself any favors by developing a speech impediment that would lead to a second surgery. So, during recess, he'd been alone, writing stories down in his notebook. They were the sort of crude narratives only a five-year-old could imagine, but they made him happy. He'd been into _Teen Titans_ then. He really wanted to be Robin. The leader of the team was so sure of himself, so brave, so fearless. Everything Eli wasn't.

Demetri had sat down beside him on the playground, out of nowhere, and peered into his notebook. Suddenly he'd started going off about how he really liked _Teen Titans_, too, and he was really sad that the show had ended. His favorite was Raven, he said, because she could astral project and cast spells, plus she was an empath. Eli had just watched him silently as Demetri talked all recess about his love for the show, he knew it forwards and backwards just like he did. And, when he offered to let Eli read his own fanfiction, the two cemented their friendship from that day onwards.

God, they'd been such nerds….

Hawk took his drink and tracked down the other Cobras, hoping their company would lift his spirits some; if they didn't, maybe the beer would. Aisha, Bert, Mitch, and the others were all congregated in one area, avoiding interactions with the Miyagi-Do students as much as possible; what the hell had Moon been thinking when she invited them over?

Aisha was telling the group about how Tory had just lost a drinking contest against Sam. Hawk was upset he missed that, although he was mad on behalf of Tory. It sucked to lose to Miyagi-Do, he knew that from first-hand experience. And Miguel was nowhere to be found, either. Hawk assumed him and Tory must have found themselves somewhere private and were probably making out or something. That was good for Miguel, but sucked for him. He really could've used some advice from his friend right about then.

Whatever. It didn't matter. Hawk committed himself the next hour to try and enjoy the company of the other Cobras, to will himself to relax to the music playing.

Until the music abruptly stopped. Suddenly, a voice carried through the room over a microphone. "Excuse me!" It was Demetri. When Hawk and the other Cobras turned around to look, he saw that the other boy had taken the stage in front of the whole party, one hand holding the microphone, the other a blue cup. Holding up the cup in Hawk's direction, he declared brazenly, "I'd like to make a toast: to Eli Moskowitz!" All of the partiers looked at each other in a moment's confusion, murmuring to one another over who, exactly, was Eli Moskowitz? Hawk frowned deeper, mistrusting of Demetri's intentions. What was he up to now?

Seeing the mass bafflement among the audience, Demetri clarified, "Oh. I'm sorry, some of you might know him as _Hawk_." Hawk's face pinched at the scornful way Demetri said his name. He knew he'd been right before. Demetri had never been supportive of his transformation, he couldn't even say his name without the acid practically spraying off his tongue. In his typical sardonic way, Demetri said, "But underneath that crazy clown cosplay, and whatever type of Manic Panic he dumps in his hair, he's still good old Eli. My binary brother."

What was this display about? Was Demetri trying to prove to Hawk that he did actually have balls by poking fun at his mohawk? "Well, he was my binary brother," continued Demetri, leveling a hard look directly across from him at Hawk. "You know what he is now? A real zero!" He held up his fingers and thumb pressed together in an oval to illustrate his point, earning some chuckles from the crowd for his math humor.

Hawk bristled at the sound of the other teenagers laughing. His ears flushed red, but his face remained hardened. So what, was this gonna be some sort of roast? From Demetri, of all people? He'd better save the nerd from embarrassing himself. "Alright, that's enough, Demetri," he told him.

Dismissing him, Demetri assured the partiers, "Don't let that angry red hairdo fool you. He's a big softie." Hawk's free hand that wasn't holding his drink curled in a fist as that elicited more laughter from the audience, and he saw the way they began to look over at him. Was that Demetri's plan? To try and ruin his cred, the rep he'd built up in Cobra Kai? "We watched every _Harry Potter_ movie together!" Demetri exclaimed. "And he bawled like a baby when Dobby died." He conjured up some jeering, fake sobs for good measure, to give the other kids an idea of how it had gone down, practically rubbing his mockery in Hawk's face.

Hawk's patience was rapidly reaching the end of its limits. This was how Demetri was going to get his revenge? Of course he wouldn't fight him like a real man. He'd choose to wield embarrassment as a weapon, instead. He knew just how sharp that blade of ridicule could be. It summoned pitiless snickering from the group and directed it to a single target. It got Eli's heart thumping in his chest, it got his skin heating up, it sent a primal panic directly into his brain that warned him he needed to fight or escape. Currently, however, he could do neither. He was stuck at the center of all of this, all eyes on him.

With a scowl, he turned to the nearest Cobra, Mitch, and said, "Alright, if he doesn't shut up, I'm going to shut him up."

Mitch gave a tiny shake of his head. "Remember what Sensei said about showing mercy."

Hawk took a deep, fuming breath, and tried to keep that in mind. He had to honor his Sensei's wishes. Even though the stares aimed at him were like hot lasers burning into his body, and their chortles felt like coals raking across his skin, leaving him raw and bleeding. It conjured up memories of all the previous times he'd been made the object of teasing; countless. Eli tried repeating Sensei Lawrence's new lesson in his head over and over: _sometimes Cobra Kai shows mercy, sometimes Cobra Kai shows mercy, sometimes Cobra Kai shows mercy…._

On the stage, Demetri raised a forefinger. "In the words of Eli's hero, Steve Jobs, 'I've got one more thing'," he said. Raising his eyebrows inquisitively, he asked the crowd, "Have any of you heard of sleep enuresis?"

Eli's entire body froze. A large lump formed in the back of his throat as every single one of his muscles felt like they contracted at once. Not that. _Anything_ but that. "Don't!" he found himself practically pleading.

His old friend smiled at that, knowing he'd finally found a way to hurt Hawk, just like he'd been hurting him practically all summer. It was a smile that almost seemed to ask, _who's the pussy now_? So, shrugging off the plea, Demetri explained to the group, "That is the medical term, of course. In the King's English, it's good old-fashioned bed-wetting!" He winked and shot a finger-gun at Hawk, clicking his tongue as he said, "And Eli here is a pro."

The others guffawed harder and crueler than ever. Eli couldn't move. His chest tightened so much that his suddenly quick, shallow breaths struggled against his constricting ribs. They were all laughing at him, all of their mocking fingers and voyeuristic gazes were locked onto him. They didn't see Hawk, the cool, badass karate student from Cobra Kai. They were seeing Eli, the pussy nerd who still wet the bed. Demetri had pulled off the mask like a magician, showing everyone the truth to who he really was: someone worthy of ridicule.

The sounds of the laughter from all sides made Eli's head spin. They'd all heard. The students from Miyagi-Do, Robby, Chris, Nathaniel. His friends from Cobra Kai, Aisha, Bert, Mitch, Dieter, Red, Stingray. Had Miguel heard? Oh God, Moon and her new girlfriend had heard, too. They'd heard it all. Eli was mortified. So this was what complete and total humiliation felt like? It was nothing like he'd imagined it would be; it was so much worse. How would he ever live this down?

As if that wasn't enough, Demetri took his chance to rub salt in the fresh wound. "My mom even had a special air mattress for sleepovers," he added, fastening his stare on Hawk. With his voice as sharp as a barb, he told everyone, "And she called it 'Eli's waterbed.'"

The blood pumped in his ears so loudly that he couldn't even hear the roar of mocking laughter anymore. Eli couldn't handle it, he couldn't bear all of the gawking, the pointing, he couldn't endure the overwhelming shame of being outed publicly as a bed-wetter. He wasn't strong enough. All of those karate lessons, and he wasn't strong enough.

Eli wasn't. But Hawk was.

Hawk took the proverbial blowtorch and burned Eli's nerves off completely, so he wouldn't feel pain anymore. Then his insides became ice cold, his heart brittle with frostbite. The wrath stirring in there was no longer a fire, but a freezing storm, a frigid chill that creeped its way up his spine and through his limbs, returning to him his movement. Whatever lingering bit of love Eli still retained for Demetri, any remorse he felt for how he'd treated his friend, froze over. And the last piece of Eli that resisted the fury of the Hawk surrendered to its ferocity entirely.

Hawk would protect him.

Nobody was ever going to hurt him again.

The cold fury that chilled Hawk's heart took over his body. No more just standing there and taking this. No more hesitations. No more regret. The only thing Hawk regretted was going his whole life without defending himself. He should've done it sooner. He'd do it now. He had to stop this enemy. Sensei Kreese was right. Even people who preached inner peace bullshit like Miyagi-Do didn't show mercy. No one in the world did. So neither would he. "Screw mercy!" Hawk snapped, shoving his cup into Mitch's hands. His avian glare latched onto Demetri, and he declared, "You're a corpse!"

It didn't matter that the other Miyagi-Do students immediately jumped in to protect their teammate. Even if the other Cobras didn't also step forward to back him up, Hawk was sure that he would have had no problem then cleaving through all of them, and even dozens more, if it meant he could make his way over to Demetri. He didn't care how many broken noses and smashed teeth he needed to leave in his wake, all Hawk could focus on was getting his hands on Demetri and making him pay the humiliation he'd put him through a hundred-fold; except he'd be dishing the retribution out with his fists.

The only thing that kept a full-on brawl from erupting in Moon's house between the two dojos that night was that someone had called the police on the party for its loud noises and underage drinking. Blue and red lights suddenly flashed from the windows, and sirens wailed, alerting everyone to the immediate threat, that they all had to get out of there right then or else risk being arrested. Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai alike scattered, putting off their feud for another time.

But even as he was being pushed out by the mob as they scrambled to escape the house, Hawk locked eyes with his enemy. "Demetri, you got lucky!" he spat out. It was almost worth getting caught by the cops if he could get his revenge right then and there, but he would have to wait. With a manic grin, he warned his old friend menacingly, "I'll see you in school!"


	12. Fury

_Cobra Kai is not a hobby, it's not a club. Cobra Kai is your brothers and your sisters. You are all Cobra Kai for life, because Cobra Kai never dies._

"Shit, shit, shit!"

"Come here, Demetri!"

Demetri darted out of the computer lab and back into the hellscape hallway. Hawk chased immediately after him, and finally grabbed hold of his prey in front of the trophy case by the doors to Building C. He quickly delivered a kick to Demetri's face, followed by a swift punch. But neither knocked him down. Hawk swung in with another punch, but this time Demetri's left arm flew up to block it, leaving Hawk momentarily stunned; when the hell had his old friend learned how to do that?

He tried whaling into Demetri with a barrage of vicious hits, attacks that had no problem previously bringing other people down. The best defense was more offense, and Hawk's strategy was always to tear his opponents apart with brutal, ruthless force before they could get a hit on him. But Demetri absorbed those strikes, too, by guarding his head with his arms, and when Hawk tried kicking him again Demetri reflexively impeded that as well with a prompt downward sweep of his right arm. Even he looked shocked over his own evasive skills.

Hawk was furious. This fight should've been over by now. How was it that Demetri's defense was better than his offense? Was Demetri just toying with him, trying to humiliate him all over again? That thought pissed Hawk off to no end. He'd finish this once and for all.

Rearing back, he threw a forceful punch forward, straight at Demetri's face. But his old friend moved aside at just the right moment to avoid getting his nose broken, catching Hawk in his arms in what felt like an embrace. "No hard feelings," Demetri muttered despondently, before twisting Hawk back around. Eli stumbled on his feet, catching himself just in time to receive a roundhouse kick to the face, sending him crashing into the trophy case behind him. He had enough reflex speed to bring up his arms to his face to try and act as a shield as the glass case busted into countless pieces around him by the force of the impact.

And just like that, the fight was actually over. Just not the way he'd expected it. Hawk had lost. He had lost to Demetri, of all people. He was a loser. The thought of that ate at his insides as he rolled over gingerly onto his back, trying to refocus his swimming vision. "Sorry, Eli," apologized Demetri as he walked up beside him.

Hawk tried to glare at his enemy for adding insult to injury by actually apologizing to him for his win. But first he needed his head to stop spinning. He groaned, every muscle aching, as he rolled over onto his hands and knees so he could try and stand up. That was a mistake. A hiss broke through his teeth as the glass scattered all over the floor cut into his palms, and he instinctively curled back on his side, where at least his clothes protected him.

"Here," a voice offered by his side, and a set of arms came down on him. One wrapped around his ribs, the other pulled his left arm over his helper's shoulders and hoisted him up to his feet. It was Demetri again. In his friend's hold, Hawk silently stared at him, his face swollen and unreadable. Why was it always Demetri? How could he possibly still be offering his assistance to Eli now, after everything he'd done to him? Why couldn't Demetri just make things easy and hate him already? Why did he have to give him that sad, sympathetic smile?

The sounds of clamoring among the other students drew Hawk's and Demetri's attention across the way, where Miguel and Robby were fighting it out in their epic rematch. Miguel had Robby scrambling on the floor, kneeing his gut viciously before kicking him into the rail guard. Robby managed to roll so he avoided a front kick. Words were exchanged between them, but Hawk was too far away to hear what was being said; he could hear nothing except the cheers and jeers of the kids around him, and the blood pounding in his ears. But he didn't take his eyes off Miguel.

Robby kicked Miguel back into a wall and pummeled him with punch after punch until Miguel succeeded in blocking one. Miguel gained control over the fight again when he hook-kicked Robby behind the knee, sending him back to the floor. Before the Miyagi-Do student had a chance to counter, Miguel grabbed his arm and wrenched it behind him, putting his other hand behind Robby's shoulder-blades for torque pressure. Miguel had won.

And from where he was observing all of this, Hawk smiled a little, as much as his sore face allowed him to. At least there would be one winner from Cobra Kai that day. And of course it would be Miguel. He was the champ. Just one swift movement, one little push on his part, and Robby's arm would be broken. Then the fight would be over.

He waited for it. And waited. Seconds felt like hours. But Miguel didn't do it. Hawk's brows pinched in confusion as he watched Miguel release his hold on Robby, freeing him. And it clicked: sometimes Cobra Kai showed mercy. Miguel was doing what their Sensei had instructed them to do. He'd already taken off the proverbial headband from Robby, but he wouldn't finish him off.

Hawk did hear the yell that tore out of Robby's throat, that primal scream he unleashed, before he promptly flipped back around and punched Miguel. Hawk couldn't believe it, was Robby actually going to take advantage of Miguel's mercy? What happened to that Miyagi-Do tranquility bullshit? How were they going to yell about how Cobra Kai preached bad things when they themselves would behave so dishonorably? The fucking hypocrites. If he wasn't completely wiped from his own fight, Hawk would've darted over there right at that moment and broke Robby's arm himself.

Both boys leapt back up to their feet, but Robby kicked Miguel behind his knee, sending him falling onto the other. And before Miguel could defend himself, Robby spun around and delivered a side-kick square against his chest. The force of the hit sent Miguel stumbling backwards, where he tipped back over the guard railing. And suddenly, Miguel was gone.

Hawk's heart jumped all the way into his throat when he heard a sickening *_thud_* land on the stairs below them. His brain stuttered for a second, trying to process what that must have meant. He looked at Demetri, whose cheeks were white as chalk, whose mouth hung agape in shock. Hawk pulled out of his hold, and his friend offered no opposition, walking instead over to the railing with the other students to peer over the side. Hawk's slow steps led him down the stairs, each footfall knocking a wisp of air out of his lungs.

"Robby, what did you do?!" a voice called out. Hawk glanced back up at the rail guard in time to see Robby make a run for it. That severe reaction could only have meant one thing.

Eli's face hardened guardedly when he saw Miguel. He was on his back, arms spread, one of his legs bent at an unnatural angle. Eyes closed. Unresponsive. Eli had to remember how to breathe as the image of his injured friend stunned him. Miguel? Hawk thought he'd called out his name, but his vocal muscles weren't working. His lips were only slightly parted as he tried calling out his friend's name again to stir him. Still, nothing came out.

He knelt down by Miguel's body, careful not to touch him. His friend's face was bruised, but his features were not of someone in pain; it almost looked like he was asleep. Right. Asleep. Right. Out of the side of his vision, Eli saw another person kneeling on the stairs beside them. Sam. Her eyes were as wide as they could possibly be, filled to the brim with tears. She hesitantly unwrapped an arm from around herself and reached it out towards Miguel. Hawk wanted to tell her to stop. They were both stopped, however, by the arrival of an EMT. The clinician pushed Hawk out of the way so he could reach over and check Miguel's pulse.

Everything next happened so fast that Hawk could barely react, and yet time seemed nonexistent anymore. It was like he was caught in a dazed unreality. He watched numbly as the emergency medical technicians gently loaded Miguel onto the gurney and wheeled him away to the waiting ambulance. Was Miguel going to be okay? Hawk needed to know.

The other EMTs, however, said nothing about Miguel as they started rounding up more students who looked injured enough to require a professional examination. Hawk found himself being grabbed by one of them and led outside into another ambulance. He was confused, but offered no resistance. He didn't even think his muscles would work properly if he'd wanted to fight them off. He might as well have been a rag doll by that point.

He couldn't even muster the energy right then to be incensed when he saw that Sam was among the couple of other students also in the truck with him as the vehicle made its way to the hospital. He caught her eyes when she stared at him, and the two of them shared a look. A mutual, nonverbal exchange happened between them. Nothing else mattered right then, they agreed. The feud between their dojos, that could wait. All that mattered then was Miguel.

The second his parents saw him, they were beside themselves with concern and disbelief. It was no small wonder why. Receiving a phone call that their son had been involved in a school brawl and was getting taken to the hospital had to be distressing enough, but actually seeing the damage with their own eyes had to be even worse. Hawk's face was banged up pretty good, the whole right side of it peppered with bruises, swelling, and a shiny black eye. His knuckles were red and blue, and the insides of his palms scratched up. The bridge of his nose had a nasty cut from the broken glass, which the nurse was busily cleaning when his parents were brought into the examination room.

Eli saw their mouths move, heard them making noises, but he didn't comprehend any of it. He was sure they must've been asking him what happened, why it happened, how it could've possibly happened, but he didn't answer any of their questions. He simply sat on the examination table, fingers fumbling absent-mindedly in his lap, eyes cast forward.

Put off by his son's lack of response, Simon Moskowitz turned to the nurse and asked, "Is he alright?"

The nurse finished applying some disinfectant to the cut on Hawk's nose and told the concerned parents, "He's got some bruising to the face and knuckles, those should go away in a few days. He did have some small bits of glass embedded in his palms and on his nose, but thankfully nothing too deep. I don't think he'll need stitches. We'll give him a good look-over and make sure there isn't anymore, but from what I can see, I think he'll be fine."

"What about Miguel?" Hawk asked the nurse for what must've been the fifth time since he was taken to the examination room. Who cared about _his_ injuries? What about Miguel?

His fingers fidgeted more, and even when Hawk tried to will himself to stop the old comforting habit, he found that he couldn't. The more his mind raced with images of Miguel's broken body on those stairs, the more he fussed with his thumbs and fingers. All of his muscles tensed up more stiffly, like someone had wound him tight, like a violin.

"I told you, I really can't say anything," replied the nurse, tossing the gauze in his hand into the nearby trash bin. Looking up at the Moskowitzes, he explained, "Several of the kids were brought in from the school. I've told him I can't disclose the status of other patients to anyone who isn't family."

Eli finally looked at his parents. His voice caught in his throat as he told them in only the simple way he could manage at that moment, "Miguel got hurt really bad. He was pushed off the stairs, he hit his back. He wouldn't wake up. He's hurt really bad! They won't tell me anything! Make them tell me!" His mom and dad just looked at one another helplessly, unable to give him what he wanted. What good were they, if they couldn't help him with this?

God, his friend was in actual danger of dying, wasn't he? Miguel could've been dying right at that moment, just a quick walk down the hallway, and not a single damn person in that hospital would tell him anything. But Miguel _couldn't_ die. He was the best of them. He was the champion. He was Cobra Kai, and Cobra Kai never died.

When the nurse tried reaching out to brush something on his nose, Hawk viciously smacked it out of the nurse's hand, sending the thing clattering to the floor. "What about Miguel?!" he shouted, a deep glower falling over his face. "Someone fucking tell me!"

"Eli, enough!" exclaimed his father in exasperation, his nerves completely shot over the whole situation.

The nurse didn't appear too upset by the outburst, trained as he was in dealing with all sorts of emotional responses from his patients. Keeping his cool, he pulled out another vial of the same ointment from the drawer, and looked up at Eli's parents to explain to them, "I need him to not move around, so I can put some liquid bandage on his cut."

Ruth Moskowitz moved to her son's side and, conjuring a calming tone that belied the look of complete anxiety on her face, told him, "I know you're worried about Miguel. But the nurse needs to help you first. I'm sure someone will let us know how Miguel is doing the moment they're able to. But for now, please, just let the nurse take care of you."

Hawk only half-understood what she was saying to him. All he knew was that no one was going to tell him about Miguel's status, whether he'd woken up, whether he was even still alive or not. How was it right that he and Miguel were in the same building, so close to each other, but he was completely in the dark about his friend's current state? He knew it had to be awful. No one just walked off a broken spine. His friend was hurt so bad, and Eli could do nothing to help him. Of what use were all of his badass karate skills if he couldn't even save his best friend?

Such sobering thoughts sedated him long enough for the nurse to apply the liquid bandage, sealing the cut on his nose. "There, not looking too bad now," said the nurse, standing up from his seat to go retrieve more supplies from the counter. "I'll need you to remove your shirt so we can check to see if any broken glass was embedded in your back or shoulders." Eli couldn't comprehend the words he'd been told. They were all starting to sound jumbled, like white noise. Why wouldn't this guy just tell him how Miguel was doing? Who gave a shit about confidentiality and disclosure laws?

He tensed when he felt his mother touch his arm. "Honey, the nurse said he needs you to take off your shirt," she repeated.

"What?" he asked, still not understanding. He watched his parents share a concerned look, like they were worried that maybe he'd suffered some sort of concussion, but it wasn't until his father reached under the hem of his shirt and tried pulling it up did it finally register what was going on. And Hawk panicked once he realized. His tattoos. His parents were going to see his tattoos. They were going to kill him if that happened. "No!" he shouted, reflexively shoving his father away from him.

Simon Moskowitz grunted as he was pushed into the nearby counter, barely avoiding hitting the nurse, knocking over the box of gloves and container of cotton swabs that were sitting precariously there. His wife cupped her hands to her mouth in shock.

Unaware of the severity of what he'd just done, Eli slid off the examination table and curled his arms up to shield himself, burying his face in his hands to block out the sights around him. His eyes were stinging so bad. Don't cry. Don't be a fucking pussy. Miguel needed him to be tough, he needed him to be strong and confident Hawk, not Eli the whimpering sissy. Hawk slapped his forehead to drive it home. Don't fucking cry! He kept hitting himself, hoping it would make the message stick, like it alone would relieve the pressure and stop the hot tears from pooling in his eyes. But it only made it worse, some of the sobs still escaped.

And the sight of him slapping himself over and over only raised his parents' panic. "Stop hurting yourself," his father pleaded to him, reaching out his hands to grab his wrists in an effort to get him to cease the action. "What's the matter with you?" Hawk managed to get out of his hold again, using the skills he'd learned in karate, and he pushed his father back away. Why couldn't they understand what he was trying to tell them?

Ruth, heart-wrenched at seeing her son in such distress, tried to calm him down the best way she knew how. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him into a comforting hug. "Calm down," she told him, rubbing his back soothingly. "I know things are scary now, but it's going to be okay."

But Hawk wrenched himself out of her hold too and he yelled back, "No!" Didn't any of them understand? Miguel's life was on the line! Nothing was ever going to be okay again until someone helped him! Why weren't any of them doing anything to help Miguel? Why were they all standing in this room doing nothing? Someone had to help Miguel!

"Calm down, Eli!" his mother shouted painfully this time, tears beginning to fall down her cheeks from distress, trying again to wrap her arms around him.

Hawk slapped her hands away. Why was everyone trying to put their hands on him? Snapping his eyes shut, Eli gripped the sides of his head and screamed. "Shut up! Leave me alone!" It was like he'd lost complete control of himself. Whereas in the past, Eli would seclude himself somewhere private to have a breakdown and cry his eyes out, Hawk erupted like a volcano. It was worse than ever. He couldn't stand it. It felt like it was the end of the world. His whole body was quivering, like it was a string someone had plucked.

The nurse walked gingerly around Hawk, hands raised out non-threateningly, keeping a safe distance. He stepped beside the Moskowitzes and asked them, "Is your son autistic?"

Ruth looked bewildered and then embarrassed by the question for a moment before answering, "Doctor Cohen told us he might have Asperger's, but he doesn't normally act like this."

Her husband added, "He's only been lashing out the last couple of months."

"Okay, well he's currently having a meltdown," explained the nurse calmly. "I advise you to just give him some space. Let's step outside and talk. Let him know that. Don't worry, we'll keep the door open, he can't hurt himself with anything in here." His parents hesitantly did as they were instructed, telling their son in small words that they were stepping out of the room, but that they would be right outside. His mother had to be practically dragged from the room, looking over her shoulder at her son, overwhelmed with grief that nothing she did seemed to be helping him.

Eli barely registered any of what they said, keeping his head covered in his hands, eyes snapped shut and teeth grinding. At least no one was talking to him now. But he still felt suffocated. He wanted to crawl out of his skin, it was so bad. Everything was so raw and exposed, and the walls were closing in around him. He was trapped in that room. He needed to get out, he needed to escape from all of this shit. He needed to get somewhere safe.

When Eli opened his eyes, he saw his parents talking with the nurse outside in the hallway. He didn't think about it. He just bolted. Hawk ran out of the room and made a sharp right turn in the hallway, sprinting away fast from the problem.

"Eli!" his parents called out. His father tried to run after him, but an ill-timed medic pulled out an empty gurney from another room, blocking him off, giving Hawk enough time to make a beeline for the door that led to the stairway. He practically leapt down whole flights, his heart racing a mile a minute. The fear was in the back of his mind, that he was being chased, and he had to escape them before they brought him back there.

He busted out the exit door into the parking garage, and ran around the cars coming and going into the hospital. His brain was in survivor mode, it scrambled to keep his reflexes sharp. It at least kept his feet moving so that he left the garage and made his way onto the street.

The sunlight momentarily blinded him, and his lungs were practically screaming as he gulped for air. He couldn't stop now, though. So Hawk ran down the sidewalk, fingers curled into fists that would swing forward with his arms to propel him faster. His lungs and heart tried to pump enough oxygen into his exhausted limbs, working with him so they could get him away and somewhere he'd be safe.

The phone in his pocket started going off. Call after call. Texts one right after the other. Hawk didn't think about them. He kept running, faster than he'd ever ran in his entire life, as quickly as his feet could carry him, worried for sure someone was still in pursuit after him. He zigzagged through streets, pushing any bystanders out of his way. He raced across a pedestrian crosswalk, heedless of the car trying to make a right turn. The driver slammed on the brakes, avoiding a last-second collision, and blared his horn. Hawk cringed at the sudden loud noise, and slammed his palms on the hood of the car in rage before taking off towards his destination again.

He ran for what must have been over half an hour straight, longer than he'd ever ran at one time, his mind on a single goal. Finally, he could see it in his line of vision: the Cobra Kai dojo. At spotting the strip mall, a wave of relief flooded through Hawk, leaving him all at once drained from head to toe. The imminent crisis had passed, because at last he was somewhere familiar now. Only then did he pull his cellphone out of his pocket.

Over fifteen calls and thirty texts from his mom and dad. His shoulders slumped, and Eli hung his head in shame. He'd really done it this time. And he had no idea why he'd acted the way he did. It was just too much to handle back there. But there was no way his parents would get it. Sooner or later he'd have to face them, and that felt like a doomsday clock hanging over his head. He was such an awful son. His parents would be well within their rights to hate him. He didn't deserve their love.

Putting the phone away, Hawk walked towards Cobra Kai. Just what he planned on doing once he managed to get to the dojo, Eli had no clue. He didn't have any endgame in mind when he took off, all he'd known was that he'd feel better once he got there. And while he didn't exactly feel better, he did at least feel safer as he saw the silhouettes of the painted karate figures on the windows as he stepped up to the place.

Maybe Sensei Lawrence was inside. Maybe Hawk could talk with him. Did his instructor know what had happened at the school, had anybody contacted him? Had he heard that Miguel was hurt? Would he know what to do? Eli was so lost, he felt so powerless, he hoped Sensei Lawrence would be able to provide him some guidance.

When he walked up towards the door, however, he spotted another figure sitting down in front of it, on the curb.

Tory.

She looked like the loneliest person on the planet right then. The girl had a small cut on the corner of her lip, and a bruise above her left eyebrow, but that wasn't why her face looked so wretched. She'd been crying, it was clear from the redness in her cheeks, the way her makeup was completely ruined. How long had she been sitting there? Had she come there, too, because it was safe?

When she looked up at him, Hawk could tell from Tory's face that she was worried he was going to blow up at her. Had the other kids at school done the same? After all, she was the one who started the fight with Sam, the one who'd escalated the tension between Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do to the breaking point where both sides finally broke down and brawled. Would Hawk blame her for how things had turned out? Would he start screaming at her for doing something so reckless and brazen, for getting so many of them hurt?

A part of him thought about it as he stared down at her, his features stiff and unreadable. Hawk wanted to blame someone. But Tory looked so lonely, so absolutely abandoned. Her wet eyes practically pleaded for help on their own. And Eli found that he couldn't be furious with her. He understood Tory's anger; he, more than anyone else, could understand why she'd done what she did. Tory was an alpha, a girl who'd fought for every little thing that was hers in life. If she didn't stand up for herself against Sam, who'd tried stealing Miguel away from her, what kind of alpha would she have been then?

It wasn't Tory's fault. She loved Miguel as much as Hawk did, she never would have wanted to see the fight end with him being critically harmed.

Sitting down beside her, Eli softened his expression, which put Tory more at ease. Taking a few unsteady breaths, she brushed her hair out of her eyes, asking him softly, "Is he…?"

"I don't know," answered Hawk honestly.

Tory almost fell apart at hearing him say those words. Wrapping her hands over her arms, she curled into herself and sobbed. Her shoulders shook with her unguarded emotion, and her wails were heartbreaking to hear, moving the boy beside her. Eli wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling Tory in close. Seeking the comfort freely given, she leaned into the warmth of his side, crying into his shirt. "I'm so sorry," she confessed between her deep, shaking breaths. "I never meant…Oh God, he's gonna…please don't let him die!"

Her emotions touched Eli to tears, as much as he tried to hold them back. They were both completely helpless, utterly miserable and alone, desperate for Miguel to get better. He didn't stop her when she wrapped her arms around his chest, drawing him in closer. She needed to be held, she needed to hold someone, she needed both. Neither meant anything deeper by it. They were just two kids, angry at the world, finding a moment's solace in each other's company on behalf of their fallen friend.

A sudden clinging of bells startled them. Both Hawk and Tory turned to look over their shoulders, expecting to see Sensei Lawrence step out of the dojo.

But it wasn't him.

It was Sensei Kreese.

Clad in his black gi, the King Cobra stood there, outside the door, and stared down at the two teenagers on the curb, crossing his arms ominously. His eyes locked in on the bruises and cuts on the students' faces, assessing the situation quickly. "Was there a fight?" he asked. No starting things off with where he had been since Sensei Lawrence kicked him out, or how he was even back at Cobra Kai. There was no time for that at the moment. All of that could wait.

Nodding, Hawk stood up and addressed him. "Y-Yes, Sensei. We fought Miyagi-Do at school, all of us. They w-wo…W-We los…." He couldn't bring himself to form the words to admit that all of the students of Cobra Kai had been defeated by their counterparts from Miyagi-Do. Not a single one of them had come out the winner, the battle had been a massacre. He couldn't confess that to Sensei Kreese, not with the way he was looking at him. "Miguel's hurt, Sensei," he said instead. "He hurt's real bad."

Sensei Kreese's face pinched the slightest at hearing that news. "How did it happen?"

Eli couldn't keep from crying as he explained, "He was fighting Robby Keene. Miguel had him pinned, he had the fight in the bag. But when he let him go, Robby attacked him, he kicked Miguel off the rails, over the stairs. Miguel hit his back. He's really bad, Sensei. We don't know whether or not he's going to make it, nobody will tell us."

Processing this information, Sensei Kreese nodded solemnly. Hawk admired his ability to hold himself together, to keep so composed, because he himself was currently failing miserably at that. His instructor's brows creased tighter, however, when he asked, "Why did he let Keene go?"

Hawk looked over his shoulder down at Tory, hoping maybe she would take over. But the girl was almost mute by this point, still curled into herself, trying to control how hard her sobs wracked her chest as she wept. Having no choice, Hawk turned back to Sensei Kreese and told him the truth. "Miguel…He…He wanted to show mercy to Robby." He snapped his eyes shut at saying this, clenching his teeth at the memory, and his cheeks were so heated as tears dripped down his chin.

Sensei Kreese took a step closer to Hawk and glared down at him with his gruff features, thick eyebrows furrowed harshly at the bridge of his nose; his student could feel him, the sheer force of his presence, he could hear his steady breathing. The King Cobra studied Hawk's face for a long moment before asking in a low, hostile timbre, "Are those tears?"

Eli's cheeks heated even more, this time from shame. Opening his eyes, he raised a shaky hand and wiped the offending tears from them with the heel of his palm. "I'm sorry, Sensei," he apologized, and tried to force his bottom lip to stop trembling.

Seeing the boy struggling to pull himself together, Sensei Kreese told him, "The moment those tears leave your eyes, you lose. And you're not a loser, are you?"

Hawk sniffed hard, taking a couple deep breaths, swallowing his upset feelings back down his throat, like a snake would swallow its food whole. "No, Sensei," he answered, jutting his quivering chin out in defiance, earning him a hard smile from the King Cobra. From where she was sitting, Tory also took the opportunity to start wiping the tears from her eyes, steeling her resolve so she wouldn't disappoint their teacher, either.

Sensei Kreese reached out a calloused hand and put it on Hawk's shoulder; the boy tensed, but did not remove it. "It pains me to hear what happened to Diaz," said the old man. "His loyalty to Sensei Lawrence's teachings was admirable. It's such a shame he'd be the one hurt most by Sensei Lawrence's change of heart about what Cobra Kai stands for, what it has _always_ stood for."

Hawk's heart thumped harder in his chest. He didn't even notice Tory standing up and walking over beside him. "Sensei?" he could only breathe out.

"Sensei Lawrence has been confused, and I've allowed him to mislead you kids for too long; out of my fondness for him, I admit," said Sensei Kreese, crossing his arms again. "But I'm sure he never meant for any of you to get seriously hurt because of his erroneous instructions. It was just…negligence on his part that he taught you weakness."

The truth of what he said weighed heavily on Hawk, turning his insides cold. An angry scowl darkened his face. Inside him, the rage churned. Sensei Kreese was right. This _was_ Sensei Lawrence's fault. Miguel had beaten Robby at the All-Valley Tournament, when Cobra Kai had preached that its enemies did not deserve mercy. He only lost this time because Sensei Lawrence muddied things up by teaching them to be weak. He had set them up to fail. Miguel would've won the fight, he would be standing there with his friends right now, he wouldn't be strapped on an ER table possibly dying if Sensei Lawrence hadn't filled his head with that sometimes-show-mercy bullshit. Miguel had trusted Sensei Lawrence completely, it wasn't fair that he paid the most for his loyalty.

It made Eli so angry. It stirred up months of repressed resentment, bitterness he'd tried packing away because Sensei Lawrence had been the man who turned him into Hawk. But it all came spilling out now, like blood from a fresh, deep cut. Eli seethed at remembering the times Sensei had humiliated him unfairly in front of the class; he was so mad about the instances he'd put him in danger, how he'd gotten him bit by a junkyard dog just to prove a point; he was beyond frustrated with how Sensei never just explained things clearly to him, when he wasn't withholding information entirely, how he instead left Hawk to decipher his bullshit metaphors; and he _hated_ Sensei Lawrence for mocking his facial deformity, for ever having called him Lip.

And now Sensei had gotten his best friend critically injured. He stole Miguel's future as a badass karate champion. He'd be lucky if Miguel didn't die.

Denied the outlet of releasing his grief, Eli let the fury of the Hawk swallow him whole again. It calmed him down. It was so familiar by now, like stepping into a well-worn shoe. Hate smoldered in his narrowed avian eyes when he looked back at Sensei Kreese, who gave him a solemn nod.

"Don't worry," he told his students. "I'm stepping in to get Cobra Kai back on track. And I will _never_ let you lose again." He saw the vulnerable desperation in Hawk's and Tory's faces, their desperate need for someone to swoop in and make things better at their darkest hour. Now, more than ever before, they were truly ready for his teachings, now that they knew what was at stake. "You will get your chance to avenge your fellow soldier sooner than you think. And you will be ready, I'll make sure of it. Miyagi-Do may have won the battle, but Cobra Kai will win the war. Defeat does not exist in this dojo, does it?"

"No, Sensei," answered Hawk and Tory in unison.

Sensei Kreese's white teeth flashed behind his smile at hearing their response. Turning around, he opened the door to the Cobra Kai dojo for them. Hawk stepped in first, ready to learn whatever his instructor had to teach him. At last, he was somewhere safe.

Nobody was ever going to hurt him again.

(A/N: Thanks to everyone who supported this fic! If you enjoyed it, please shoot a comment and let me know.)


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